what i know to be true.

The year was 2017. Megan was on her annual trip to Portland. It was probably grey and rainy and cold outside. We’d probably had a late night the evening before. And, if those two things were true, then we definitely didn’t want to do much on whatever day this was written — lounging, watching New Girl, drinking coffee, reading our new books from Powell’s. And, when we’d cycled through all those, we did what any gals born in the early 90s do with a notebook, pen, and some time to kill.

We played a game of MASH.

You remember this game, right? The one where your entire future is determined by the size of a spiral circle your friend draws. The one where the most important pieces of your future are not only the city where you’ll live and the job you’ll have but also — at least in my preteen versions of MASH — the color of the car you’ll drive and the kind of wedding dress you’ll wear. (I went through a looooong, weird phase in middle school where everything was going to be silver. Silver house! Silver car! Silver wedding dress!) From these games, I’ve married countless exes and crushes and celebrities. I’ve been a therapist and a teacher and the winner of American Idol. And I’ve had anywhere from one to seven to 25 dogs and children (but, always, always a dog).

From the start, I knew MASH couldn’t accurately predict my future. I knew it was just a game. I knew that what was written on these pieces of paper wouldn’t come true. It couldn’t! Probably not. And yet, I’d always pin just a little bit of hope or wonder on the every-fifth-answer that got circled. Even as an adult, I’d think, “Well, maybe I could be a Broadway actress. Maybe, in another life, I could meet and marry Ryan Gosling. Maybe I could move to Norway. Or New York City. Or Minneapolis.”

Megan and I have written lots of things in notebooks together over the years — goals, resolutions, diaries of our trips together so we always remember the four hours we spent at an AT&T on New Year’s Eve or the random house party we went to in Arizona. And we’ve played many games of MASH throughout our friendship, too — while waiting at the airport, flying on planes, during sleepovers. So this one game where MASH told me that I’d be moving to the Twin Cities didn’t stick with me. I didn’t have any big revelations once it was circled. I didn’t set my sights on moving to the Cities right at that moment, or make an action plan and move forward with it as soon as the game was done. It was circled (along with the rest of my MASH-decided life plan), and then I moved on.

I’ve wondered about living in the Twin Cities for a while, but those wonderings never turned into anything more than that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever live there, especially after planting myself back in Fargo-Moorhead. But then the world changed this spring, and so did my plans. And so did my ideas of what I thought I would do next, or could do next, or wanted to do next.

So my tentative wonderings about the Twin Cities turned into more serious wonderings. And then those more serious wonderings turned into tentative conversations. And then those tentative conversations turned into something more: “Maybe I can do this.”

But moving is exhausting, job searching is overwhelming, and both of those things feel particularly heightened and hard during this time in the world. Was I really going to do this? Was now the right time to do this? And, even at almost-30 years old, I’ve asked myself too many times: Will other people think this is the right choice? 

I found myself thinking about that word — right — a lot. I’d catch myself wondering if my plans were right or wrong, easily switching into either/or thinking, even though I try to keep my feet planted in the world of both/and. Who’s to say what’s right or wrong for my life, except for me? Through it all, while I’ve been trying to shift away from wondering if what I’m doing is right, I do know one thing.

These wonderings that turned into conversations that turned into, “Okay! I’m doing this?! I’m doing this!” felt good. They felt true. I felt that it was “right,” not in that there was an unlived, opposite, “wrong” choice. But it was right because I felt it deep in my bones, even when I’ve been nervous and scared of the unknown. Even when I know I’m going to miss my mom and dog, my cozy apartment, the life I’ve built and lived in Fargo-Moorhead. Even with all that, this still feels like the truest choice I can make for myself right now.

After I had my first tentative conversation about moving to the Twin Cities with Megan, she pulled out that same notebook and handed me the slip of paper at the top of this post. She’d saved that little square of mine, knowing that one day this circled “Minneapolis” might become more than a MASH answer.

A few weeks later, she mailed me this quote by Cheryl Strayed: “Trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true.” I wrote this quote, probably five years ago. I sent it to her in a card, while she was in the middle of her own deep figuring-things-out phase. It’s lived on her fridge since then, but made its way back to me. Soon, it’ll find a home in our new place.

So, I’m moving to the Twin Cities next month. Now, this is more than an answer made by a spiral circle. It’s a deliberate choice I’m making for this next phase of life — on and off paper.

Here’s to this next, true thing in my life. Fargo, I’m not going far — the drive is the perfect distance to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack in its entirety and sit with your feelings for awhile. Come stay with Megan and I in our cutie little duplex once things calm down. All are welcome for a drink on our patio. 

And Twin Cities, hi! I’m so excited to get to know you.

the ending i got.

We held an end-of-year banquet for our Residence Life student leaders last week. This night usually involves getting dressed up, taking group photos, handing out awards, and -- most importantly -- intentionally coming together as one 60+ person team. Instead, on that night, I used my eyebrow pencil and put on a real bra for the first time in 33 days, threw on a sweater over the leggings I’d worn every day that week, and sat in front of a computer screen that held the faces of humans I’ve worked with -- and have cared about so deeply -- this year.

To start our banquet, my boss gave an introduction and a heartfelt thank you to our students (that made me cry, obviously), and ended with: “This is not the ending we wanted, but it is the ending we got.”

Last month, like most colleges in the country, my institution made the responsible choice to move to remote learning for the rest of the year. Most of our student staff quickly left campus. So did our residents, some taking everything with them, some leaving belongings behind that they’ll return to campus to pack soon. Outside my apartment building, there are four cars in a parking lot that’s usually full. I walk through campus often but don’t encounter anyone (except the turkeys and squirrels who are thriving with their new freedom). Over the past weeks (it’s really only been weeks, not months?), what it means to be a Residence Life professional changed. 

And because I am leaving my job this summer -- there, I said it without hiding it in a sneaky, wordy Instagram post -- it will never go back to the way it was.

I’ve tried writing about leaving my job three different times now. I first wrote about it in January, but didn’t publish anything because it felt too soon. I’ve known I was leaving since last summer, when I had my first real wonderings about what it would feel like to return home from a workout, or after a night out with girlfriends, or with a man I’m dating and not run into students who recognize me because of the posters of my face plastered up in their hallway or because we met earlier that week for a conduct meeting. My boss has known since November, my colleagues have known since January, and I told my staff in February. This has been my plan for a while now -- a chance to enter my 30s outside the walls of a residence hall. 

But sharing in January still felt too soon. So I wrote something and then I sat on it through January. And February. This was normal for me; I write things and sit on them wayyyy more frequently than I write things and actually put them out in the world. That writing was, may I say, some nice, hopeful shit centered around the “both/and” of loving something and also leaving it, filled with well-crafted metaphors, thoughtful reflections, and even some space to add what I was going to do next.

But then it was March, and the world changed. None of my words made sense to share anymore. Who am I to wax poetic about a beautiful theological concept in the midst of a global pandemic? I’m a complicated being full of multilayered truths, sure, but the only truth I am filled with right now is that I really do not know WTF is happening. The excitement about finding what was next for my career, my trust in embracing the unknown, my big, brave steps into a world outside of Residence Life? It all vanished when I realized that I was willingly leaving not only my stable job but my housing in the midst of a global health pandemic and the highest rates of unemployment in years. Oops.

So then, with many deep breaths, I tried to write something new. It included different words meant to make ~MeAnInG* of this mess, lots of feelings about the sadness of my job (as I knew it) ending just like that, and a few feeble attempts to be brave despite the realities of the world. It was all a bit dark and rambly and, despite being filled with emotion, didn’t capture how I felt or what I wanted to say. I deleted the whole thing. (Just kidding, I never delete anything, so it’s sitting in my drafts folder along with my January words, where all of my unpublished drafts go to die. Until I eventually resurrect them between four months and three years later.)

And then last week, I sat in that Zoom banquet with my colleagues and students, celebrating our year together and this weird-ass end to it that we didn’t ask for, and I reflected on my own endings this year -- the ones I lived without knowing it. 

Without knowing it, I held my last one-to-ones in my office. My students talked about classes and tests, lamented about group projects and overlapping deadlines. I asked about their residents, followed up on roommate conflicts, checked in on their upcoming programs. We’d just returned from spring break and had a whole quarter ahead of us -- so much time! I probably rushed through them in order to rush off to the next meeting or get to the next item on my to-do list.

Without knowing it, I held my last staff meeting -- a wild two hours with a chatty, newly-formed group from two buildings. We talked about expectations of each other and how we wanted to show up as our best selves every Tuesday night. We wrote these on a big piece of yellow butcher paper and tacked it to the wall, so we could be reminded of them each time we gathered. But that was our last time gathering, at least face-to-face.

There wasn’t a final conduct meeting, or an end-of-year party, or a roommate mediation (actually, I’m okay that there wasn’t another one of those). So many traditions, rhythms, and mile-markers of an academic year skipped over, just like that. Without realizing it, I moved through a season of lasts I’d been eager to pay attention to and hold space in my heart for. I wanted to enter each of these endings knowing they were the final time, so I could properly say goodbye to what has been my career and home for years.

I’m realizing that maybe it’s better that I couldn’t make a running list of every “last” in my Residence Life career, pinpointing and preparing for those exact moments. If I’d had the time, I toooootally would have made a checklist with all the things I wanted to do one last time -- a bucket list of sorts -- turning really special moments into to-do lists for my planner. In my head, it was because I wanted to prepare for them, make sure I always remembered them, to count them as special. But let’s be real -- I wanted something I could control in the midst of inching closer and closer toward an Unknown Life outside of Residence Life. That list would have turned those moments not into something to be fully present for and experience, but as something else to accomplish. To check off. To get through.

It’s better that I had all of these lasts without realizing they were happening, without the chance to put extra pressure on myself (or others) to make each one meaningful, special, “one for the books.”  Because even without naming them as my endings, that’s what they were. And all of them were important and meaningful. Sacred, even.

Our last building-wide program was not a program at all, but a series of sex education booklets my staff made and delivered to every resident in their hall. I got to proofread them before they sent them out, and was struck by their inclusivity, dedication, and humor. There weren’t any end-of-year parties this year, but that means my last one included a homemade slip-’n-slide and getting pied in the face. And while I won’t have the traditional photo memories from our end-of-year banquet -- dressed up, “let’s make a funny face,” selfies with everyone -- I have this. And that can be enough.

These weren’t the endings I wanted, but they’re the ones I got. And despite it all, what I got was good. Not just these endings, but my whole career in Residence Life. It was all so very good. It was hard and unexpected and challenging and hilarious and full of tears and laughter and late nights and emails and duty calls and I never could have planned the way these last four years went if I tried. It was all so good.

It was all more than enough. 

arrows.

When I was 24, I got two tattoos: a list of latitude and longitude coordinates on my right shoulder blade and an arrow on my right arm. It’s always easy to explain the first one; they are tangible numbers that translate into a spot on a map, tied to time periods in my life when I called that place home. I like answering questions about that one — it’s concrete, specific, and makes sense even to people who don’t like or understand tattoos. There’s not much wondering or meaning-making you have to do to get its purpose on my body.

The arrow though? That one’s always hard to explain, and my answer changes every time someone asks about it. Sometimes I got it because you have to pull an arrow back before letting it go. Sometimes I got it because I heard that Kasey Musgraves song where she told us to follow our arrows, and I thought it was cheesy but in a good, true way.

But if you asked me right now I would say I have this tattoo as a reminder. (Aren’t they all?) I want to remember (and believe) that I can point myself in a direction and go. Not just point myself to new places to travel or to new jobs or new hobbies; those tangible things that show up in our calendars or our camera rolls or, sometimes, on our bodies as tattoos. I want to remind myself that I can bravely move toward the indefinable things that make up the parts of each day — the relationships and vocations and goals and the things I journal about, the hopes I whisper to my closest circle, the swirly truths I know but can’t always say.

I want to remind myself that when I want or need or deeply feel something, I can thrust myself fully toward that hard, wild, brave thing. And that I can trust that I will land where I need to.

Ask me tomorrow, maybe it’ll be different. For now, my tattoo is like me in this picture: looking ahead, courage coming breath by breath.

until next time.

I’ve always loved next steps. The action plan, the to do list documenting the action plan, the “so what” that follows every action. I love the orderliness of it, the finished product looming in the distance. Somehow, following up with each action makes everything feel more legitimate: that doing this right now will lead to something else. Something bigger, better, greater. Like, after I’ve read a really good quote in a book, I write it down in my journal so I don’t forget it; just remembering that I’ve read it doesn’t feel like enough. And after I’ve read a really good (or even a really bad) book, I add it to my growing list of all the books I’ve read since ninth grade; just remembering that I’ve read it doesn’t feel like enough. And after I’ve written something that feels good and real, I publish it to this blog; sometimes, just writing for myself doesn’t feel like enough.

With this, comes that. When I do this, I know that happens next.

But I put my first bit of writing online—for friends and family and anyone with Internet access to read—without a plan. I had an idea that meant something to me and some words that had been hangin’ out in my soul for awhile, so putting them “out there” seemed like a logical next step. But that was it; I didn’t know what would come after. I started this blog without a timeline, without a prepared follow-up post, without a HootSuite account with scheduled posts, and without an idea of what the heck I’d write about to fill these virtual pages. 

When I hit “publish” on that first post two weeks ago, I felt unprepared. I didn’t have a next step. I had done what I wanted to do and didn’t have a plan for what happened next. A wave of questions rolled over in my mind: When should I post next? What should I write about? How often is too often to post? What if I don’t have something new to post by the time I think I should post by? Will this blog lose legitimacy if I don’t post on a regular basis? Does this blog even have any legitimacy?

These questions were followed by my next-step-self’s answers. I should probably post at least once each week. That’s what people expect when they read a blog, right? At least one post each week. Otherwise people might forget that I even have a blog. And that’s how often all of my favorite writers post on their blogs. I should be able to come up with something new to post at least once each week. That’s a good goal: once each week.

So, I listened to my answer-self and carved out time within the week to write. I sat at my desk, turned on the instrumental music, stared at the screen, and waited for the week’s words to come. Writing a blog was on my to do list; in bright blue dry erase marker across my whiteboard, it stared me down at eye-level each time I sat to pay a bill or check my email. I desperately wanted to cross it off and complete a next step in this new project. I wanted a follow-up. I wanted Writing Life Letters to have some legitimacy. 

But, underneath it all, I really just wanted it to have meaning. I wanted it to be enough.

That’s at the heart of so much of what we do as humans. Or, at least it’s at the core of what I often do. The questioning and doubting, the attempting to “do” more according to society’s or my own standards, in order to make myself or my work or my writing or my life feel more real and valued. I create tasks, lists, and calendar events that remind me that when I do this, I get closer to that. Each next step becomes part of a bigger plan for my day, week, and life.

But my writing’s meaning doesn’t come from having done it on time. Its value doesn’t rest in how often I post. I did not start writing to follow a certain set of steps. I did not start writing life letters to stick to a strict schedule, to cross each post off of a to do list, or to live up to standards to make myself (and my writing) feel more legitimate. I started writing because I wanted a place to put my thoughts and ideas. Whether those thoughts come once a day or once a week or once a month doesn’t matter. It’s okay that there are no next steps—no new ideas for posts bubbling up from me—after I publish this. 

The meaning and value and enoughness are there; they’ve been there from the moment I sat down to write. They’ll be there the next time I sit down to write too—whenever that may be. 

So, until next time.