There is a Woman Here

I walked into a restaurant the other day with a question for the manager. The hostess picked up the black phone with a cord behind the welcome podium and called her boss. "There's a woman here with a question for you," she said.

I almost asked her, "Who is this woman?"

And then I realized she was referring to me.

Life happens fast sometimes. One minute, you are barely making it through finals as an undergraduate. The next, you are barely making it across the graduation stage without stumbling in those impractical heels you needed to wear for pictures (and so you would be tall enough in the crowd for your family to find you). Two seconds later, you are on a plane to a place you have never been to cross bridges you didn't know existed. Twenty-four hours after that you are wandering through a country that doesn't speak your language, but the people teach you more than college ever did.

And one millisecond after that you are doing the nine-to-five drill in clothes that need to be tailored and it's weird when people refer to you as a woman.

That, my friends, is a brief summary of what 2014 was for me. One year ago, I was on winter break as a college student. Seven months ago, I wore the gown of graduation and carried the curse of post-graduation. Six months ago, I was blessed enough to explore Eastern Europe and find pain in cities that bled history in cobblestones. Five months ago, I started blogging for the CatholicMatch Institute. Less than one month ago I had my first day in my first full-time position.

2014, you have been nothing but a whirlwind. But not one that causes nausea. One that pumps adrenaline into veins and breath into lungs. Sometimes I couldn't breath. But my heart was always beating.

If someone had said to me in January of 2014 that this year would bring me from San Francisco to Poland, and that in the end I would be at home in Worcester and no where else, I would have said never. I would have said no, that's not the plan.

Too bad I actually have zero control over the plan. I also have zero control over the fact that people now refer to me as a woman. But I think that was one of the biggest gifts of 2014-there is a woman here.

Dear God, Thank You for My Kitchen

I baked a cake today and almost gave my father a heart attack. He walked into the kitchen as I stood surrounded in a cloud of confectioner's sugar, chocolate dripping from the side of the oven, flour on the floor, and spatulas haphazardly balanced on dishes. "Oh my God," he said. "What happened in here?"

I looked around me at the mess and felt so, so calm. My cake was in the oven and my frosting was settling in a bowl on the counter. The room was warm and sunlight was coming from the window above the sink, bouncing off my mother's green plants and melting the chocolate already messy on the stove top.

 I love to bake. I love to marry dull ingredients and watch them have a relationship so sweet and tender that people sigh when they taste it. I only recently realized why I enjoy baking this much; my friends will know me as a klutz in the kitchen and a disaster at following any sort of written instruction. But when I bake, following a recipe is following a simple map to a place where happiness is uncomplicated.

And man, happiness can be so complicated these days. We feel like we need tablets and laptops and an iPhone 6 and a new dress for the New Year when really, happiness lives most often in the place that gets the most dirty: the kitchen.

A kitchen is the greatest blessing I have received this year, although there have been many that swooped unexpected into my life. I eat in a kitchen, a privilege that thousands do not enjoy. Some of these thousands don't have a house to put the kitchen in. Or they have a kitchen but they don't have electricity. Almost exactly one year ago, I traveled to Ecuador and saw women sweep brooms over dirt floors that flooded sometimes. I came home and cried in the shower because my heart was breaking that I had a kitchen and they did not. Today, when I baked a cake in the sun in my own home, I was reminded that I shouldn't be grateful for the new Galaxy tablet I am getting under the tree. Or for the Blu Ray player in the living room. Or even for a car. 

I should be grateful that I have a kitchen and that I have the luxury of hot water, and that my greatest concern at the moment is that the heat has broken in my car. Grateful that my kitchen is filled with cookies and sandwich meat and white bread that we bought at the grocery store with a credit card we can pay for. But mostly, grateful that my kitchen is also filled with family. 

That is Christmas. That is holiday. Waking up and praying not for something, but because of something. Praying in thanks and not in greed. I am not praying this season for a new year filled with blessings. Lord, I have them here already. Pray, instead, for the strength to recognize them when they walk into the kitchen and say Oh my God, what happened here.

What happens in kitchens is love. Whether it is a dirt floor in Ecuador or a food pantry or a Fridigaire-filled room, baking is a family thing. A hell of a lot of little pieces need to come together to be something that melts hearts. Eggs and vegetable and oil and vanilla extract don't taste like celebration on their own. You need to mix them together and watch them argue until they blend into something that makes sense when you taste it. 

Guys, Christmas is about cookies. But it's about eating them with someone else and remembering that sugar cookies, too, are little sweet blessings. And kitchens are worth thanking God for. 

What They Don't Tell You About Post-Grad

I was having a conversation with a good friend the other day, a friend who is another recent graduate, and we were catching each other up on our lives.

"I feel like I have so little that is definite in life and so little stability," he said. "I spend a disturbing amount of time each day pondering existential questions."

I agreed with him that the latter was disturbing, and followed with, "Trust me, I understand. I feel very disjointed. And simultaneously constantly anxious."

"Yeah. Sounds about right," my friend returned.

This conversation ran circles in my mind for days. So little stability. Disjointed. Constantly anxious.

Is this what it means to be a college graduate in 2014? Do we feel this way because we are job hunting? Is it normal to worry so much about our futures when our present days have barely dawned? Or is this simply what it means to be an adult?

On some level, I think to be disjointed is synonyms with "college graduate." Think about it. We go to college for four years or more and exist in a world that includes highlighters and Ramen noodles and snow days. Once we are handed a degree, so many of us have not actually made a decision about what kind of career we want. And then we are either shuffled back home, relocated to a completely new place for a year of service or a new job, or plunged back into the world of academia. Either way, a degree equals another step. It is like standing before a staircase that leads to one thousand different doors, and all of them are dark. Which step do you take? Is moving home a step backwards? Or is it actually a step in the right direction?

Of course, the answers to these questions are impossibilities. And that is why we feel disjointed. That is why earning a degree is a huge accomplishment that proceeds to crush you every day because you have it and you must do something with it. But...what?

That is why we are constantly anxious, Class of 2014. Because we have received something that 50 percent of us don't know what to do with, while the other 50 percent do know what we want but we are facing an entire Internet of opportunities. Which opportunity leads to the light?

Here are the things I have learned since May 17, the day I officially got my English degree:

1. Don't expect anything to be the way you expected. It won't be. It's going to be better than your plans, but it certainly isn't going to happen overnight.
2. Don't give up. It is alarmingly easy to slip into a coma of I will never or I don't even know what I want. You do know what you want. Just quiet your mind down for a minute, stop Tweeting, and feel what your gut says. It has a pretty loud voice when you turn off the right noise.
3. Do maintain a sense of humor. You are going to spend so much time disappointed, confused, and stressed as you try to figure out what the heck you are actually going to do with your twenties. Learn to laugh about it. Talk to your friends. Like I said, the whole reason this blog post happened is because I realized another recent grad was living my life, too.
4. NEVER compare yourself to another person. If we were all accomplishing the same things in the same way, the world would be full of boring people.
5. Keep in mind that, despite the endless rejection letters from various places or ceaseless questions from people who are wondering, "What are you doing with your life?", your degree does mean something. It does. Anything you put effort towards matters because you cared enough to give yourself to it. Give yourself to your twenties, too. We may be confused and we may be one disjointed group of people, but we all cared enough about something to study it for x amount of years. Don't forget that.

Give yourself to the next phase, even if you aren't sure what it is yet. Remember, our present days have barely dawned.