A Right-Brained Blonde

As some of you might know, I have spent the past, give or take 7-8 months obsessing over my transfer applications. Mulling over supplemental essays that in 200 words or less are supposed to give these perfect strangers some small perception of who I am, not just as a student, but as a person, an individual, and a human being. 

Then, there’s the judging. I have now traveled a grand total of 3,064 miles to sit in front of four different experts in their field and audition, interview, and try and be impressive, whilst trying to maintain some measly little form of individuality. 

I’ve gone back to the hallways of high school and seen the counselors and teachers that were close and kind enough to recommend me for these schools and these big steps toward my future, when all I want to do is walk through third building to the locker that my best friend shared with me junior year, and sit in the senior lunch area, and stand in the back of TMH and go back to when everything wasn’t necessarily always perfect, but I always knew that I was in the right place, with the right people, trying as best I could to make the right choices.

I always try and find an outlet for my stress. Sometimes it’s writing, sometimes it’s a non-stop Taylor Swift-athon for five hours straight, sometimes it’s a hot bubble bath and going to bed early. Well, Thursday, it was baking a cake. 

I waited all day to make a St. Patrick’s themed cake at my house, and as soon as I got off work, I went to the grocery store and bought my items. I put on Frank Sinatra and felt my zen start to come back. Baking is a magical thing. You can literally make something out of nothing, in under an hour. Instant gratification. Just what I needed.

I prepared my french vanilla cake with green food coloring and watched as it rose in the oven. I beat together my ingredients for my vanilla buttercream. I began to frost my cake and all of a sudden, I saw what looked like vanilla snot running down the sides.  The icing never set. I didn’t proofread the recipe and the measurements for butter were off. It was runny. I couldn’t even bake a stupid cake.

So, I did what any 19 year old girl who had been pushed to this limit would do: I cried.

I stirred the goop that was my frosting: and I cried. I let this soupy thin mess roll off the spoon and watched as it fell into the bowl: and I cried. I realized that  was crying over VANILLA BUTTERCREAM FROSTING, for goodness sakes: and well, yeah, I still cried. 

I cried for every supplemental essay, for every transcript, for every letter of recommendation, for every email to an admissions office, and for every due date that I’ve looked at in the past 6 months. I cried for every dean that looked at me funny, for every professor that refused to sign my forms, for every nerve I felt at my auditions, and for every time that I looked at the list of things that “Most Successful Transfer Students” have accomplished. 

In case you’re making a tally, you’re right. I bawled. Over frosting. 

I ran into the bathroom, got in a bubble bath (before I realized that hot water had stopped running about 20 seconds into my bath water running), and I gave up. I put on my pajamas and went to bed. Thursday beat me. And I was one sore loser.

I woke up the next morning and headed toward the kitchen. On my way, I thought about how it was a new day, and the last thing that I wanted to see was that pitiful cake that I didn’t even finish frosting. 

I looked over my small kitchen and saw two 9” rounds of green french vanilla cake that had been totally de-frosted. They were sitting there, wrapped in cellophane, completely plain, except for a few places where a little frosting had soaked into the moist cake. Next to the cakes was a note, in my mother’s handwriting that said “I’ll bring you a can of buttercream on my way home :] “. 

In life, things are never going to be perfect, especially when you’re 19. You’re going to be so nauseated by due dates and things that are required of the person that you think you’re supposed to be. You’re going to doubt yourself and get overwhelmed with the “what ifs” and the “shoulda, coulda, wouldas”. You’re going to be scared. And that’s okay.

I learned a valuable lesson last Thursday. Where you go to college, what your major is, what gpa you earned, those things do matter. But, they’ll never matter as much as having people in your life who are going to scrape off the runny frosting and know that you tried your best. So, thank you, to each and every one of you. It’s funny how easy it is to do things when you have so many people telling you that you can. You can get all your applications in. You can do 3 auditions and interviews with 3 different monologues. You can put everything that you possibly can into trying to achieve what you know you deserve.

And you can even frost a cake. 

5 days. 3, 029 miles. And I get the feeling that this is a place that I’ve been before. 

Dear Boston Massachusetts,

I know that we’ve only met once, but those five days are some of the fondest memories that I can claim to be all my own. As I sit here on this flight and try to find some fraction of potential for mental preparedness, I find myself realize that I’m not afraid of you…not in the least. The last time that we were together, I feel like I gained a pretty good understanding of who you are. I ate chowdah at Quincy Market. I saw the Sox play at Fenway Park. Three Irish soccer players told me to sit my ass down on the T. Needless to say, I fell in love with you. 

Now, I’m taking the next step in this whirlwind of a relationship and contemplating the idea of moving in. A few things will have to fall into place first; most notably, the most important audition and interview of my life. This date will be different from the last. I feel like there’s an unspoken yet understandable pressure on this meeting, just like every second date. Was this some fling that we’re going to go home and A) try our best to forget about or B) compare all those future loves to? Or is this something that could last? No matter what happens, Boston, you’ll always be more to me than a five night stand. After I got off my first flight and stepped into Boston Logan airport for the first time, I felt like you were a place that I had visited sometime before. You challenged me to not just be the person I am, but be the person that I’ve always known I could be. 

 Regardless of where life takes us over the next five days, or even the five months after that, just know that I’ll never forget you and all the beautiful lessons that you’ve taught me: Go ahead and order the large sized chowdah, because the little bowl just really isn’t enough. The Fenway Frank really is the best tasting hot dog on the face of this earth and you need to have had at least three by the time that they start playing “Sweet Caroline”. Don’t get cocky and just hold one of the poles on the T, because chances are there are going to be three Irish guys that see you fall over and look like a dumbass and they are going to be vocal about it…and you are going to love them anyway. 

So, that’s it, Beantown. I can’t wait until this plane lands and I take what I’m sure will seem like a massive step into Boston Logan airport and do what it is that I’m here to do. In Good Will Hunting,  Ben Affleck tells Matt Damon’s character, “You’re sitting on a winning lottery ticket that you’re too much of a fuckin’ pussy to cash.”

Well, Will Hunting, this one’s for you.

Let’s hear those numbers. 

Starting pretty early on, we are told that 2+2=4. a+b=c. x-5=10. y=mx+b. Then the real math begins. If we are raised in an ideal home and go to a good school and get good grades, we can go to a good college and get a useful degree, and if we do well with that, we can get a good job, somewhere in there we can get married and start having kids, and if we did all the previous steps correctly, we can provide for our families and pass this flawless equation on to them and watch as life takes its course. This is how it’s supposed to work. We’re supposed to be able to accept that A+B+C+D+E= happiness. That’s supposed to be enough.

…but what about the mornings that you wake up and look out your window and want to go dance in the sun, or the nights when you dress up to go drive around with your friends doing absolutely nothing but enjoying each other’s company. What about the trips that you take for little to no reason other than the fact that you want to go, and the fact that your camera doesn’t work or you didn’t take as many pictures as you would have liked doesn’t matter because there’s no way on God’s green earth that you could ever forget the things that you experienced or, more importantly, how those experiences made you feel. What about the hours that you spend lying in your bed staring at the ceiling, listening to your favorite song, and wondering…who am I going to be? Who am I going to end up with? What do I want? Where am I going?

Where does all of that fit into the equation? Is it some invisible step that mathematicians and esteemed minds simply neglected to include? Why is it that some of the most important aspects of our lives are the ones that are left out of the grand scheme of things?  Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve never heard of anyone being able to get from A to B ,in their life equation, without a hitch, LET ALONE being able to get all the way to the equals sign. These hitches, these road bumps, these things that “aren’t going according to plan”, they’re deemed as “something going wrong”. But, I’ve started to begin to wonder if maybe they’re something going right.

I fear the day that I get so caught up in equations that I stop feeling. My method of  solving for x is one that will always allow for making mistakes, laughing ‘till I cry, loving with every fragment of my being, and feeling something. Anything at all. on a daily basis. And for all you left brainers out there, who need a concrete answer, don’t worry. It always has the same one: N/S. No solution. Why? Because there is not a mathematician or esteemed mind on this planet that can tell you what it is that will make you truly happy. That is a task that is left to each and every one of us to solve, and every single answer will be different in every possible way. 

It seems to me that x is constantly waiting for us, each and every day, just waiting to be found. We just have to take our own steps to get there. But, then again…..

I’ve never been very good at math.