The stripes of a Tiger

 

Ten years and one day ago today I attended a wedding. The nuptials were held in the chapel on the campus of my undergrad alma mater, a metaphor I've never realized until literally just now, as shortly after the wedding reception I climbed into the backseat of a car, popped some Benadryl to knock me out and slept all the way back to Missouri where I would start graduate school the next morning. It was like a direct hand off of the educational baton, one last visit to my old stomping grounds before meeting my new ones. 

On August 9, 2010, I passed a student on the steps outside of Lee Hills Hall reading a newspaper (he would become a ubiquitous fixture for all of us, just like that with his creased pages) on my way into that lecture hall on the end of the building, with recessed seating and a cozy warmth to it. Y'all know the one. 

My first day of "boot camp," where we spent probably two hours going around the room listing our bachelor's degrees and institutions, sharing why we came to journalism school, and a fun fact about ourselves. My fun fact was that I had just obtained my very first cell phone a week before. I think I started rambling and quickly finished my set with a shouted: "I'm not shy!" and then shut up so the next person could talk. 

After my introduction, a few people down the row one boy said his name, then dipped his head my direction and said, "And I went to Valpo too." Shocked that there was another person here in this space that went to my tiny school of less than 4,000 students, I refrained from totally freaking out publicly (but I'm pretty sure I went straight to him during our next break to compare notes about all the people we both knew). Several weeks later I would orchestrate a game of pick up football in the park, and it was here that this boy and I collided heads HARD. In retrospect, we should have gone to the hospital, but ya know, here we are. 

Ultimately, yes, I am glad that I went to grad school, but mostly, no, I don't feel proud of my professional accomplishments since crossing that stage wearing a fancy master's hood. I'm still trying to figure out if that really matters. Lately I've been looking at a more comprehensive evaluation of my life and its blessings, potential, idiosyncratic creature comforts. 

I met some people at Mizzou who have stayed in my life ever since. I've been on cruises with them, driven to northern California to see them, or even scarier yet driven to Orange County to see them when they're in town. Their emotional support and silly friendship have been invaluable to my life, and they alone are worth the cost of student fees and giving hours of my life away to grading exams as a teaching assistant...

...

my eyes are still bloodshot from those nights of combing through essays about media framing and deciding whether each one deserved exactly 16 or 17 points out of 20. (And then later defending my choice of giving only 16 or 17 points during my office hours when students came and contested. Thank God for coffee, is all I'm saying. Sophomores fighting for an A instead of a B are pretty intimidating.)

I rented a dirt cheap apartment, Peeps, a fully furnished basement of a house with a kitchenette, utilities included. Free laundry, no pet rent, private entrance. My walk was shoveled in the winter, smoke detector batteries replaced. Upstairs was my dad's best friend from high school (and still best friend today) and his wife, and one of my biggest regrets during my time there was that I didn't go upstairs to hang out with them during the blizzard in 2011 when our cars were all buried in snow drifts for a week. 

***

My first reaction to a girl who I now trust my heart to fully was one of jealousy. On our first day of reporting class she was called down to the front as a star student example to talk about the article she had written for the paper the day before. Later she spied me in the newsroom flirting with some guy and thought I was easy. In the spring we were assigned to an editing "triad" together, and that summer when she called me on the way home from a road trip my connection to her really took root. 

I cried a lot during graduate school, which actually isn't saying much because I'm a crybaby anyway. The stress was real, there was always something to be done, a paper to write, articles to read, community events to attend then come back to the news desk and clarify things for an editor before they finally hit Publish and I could go home to the cat and white wine and gummy candy, pilfering Netflix documentaries using my ex's account until I decided maybe I should cut ties and stick to the free cable I was provided. 

I "hated" the town where I lived at the time, but looking back I think that was only because I had no money and limited spare time to enjoy its many charms. If I lived there now I'd utilize the heck out of the bars, local craft brews, cozy downtown, lush trees, balmy nights and confident thunderstorms. I would bring Max my tiger cat to be a real life mascot in the land of university Tigers. I would attend my first football game at Faurot Field once Covid is finally gone for good. (I did tailgate twice, once to write a story about homecoming traditions and another to actually sip suds in the sunshine). 

The coffee at Kaldi's was way too caustic and even though they had the best interior woodwork that made you feel like you were in a loft, goodness it was crowded and noisy and I couldn't concentrate and you had to get a new receipt every two hours to access the WiFi which, seriously. 

The sweet potato chips with horseradish BBQ sauce paired with a gin & tonic at Addison's, however? Primo. I had one of my biggest laughs ever there, hanging in a booth with a random group after we chilled in the hot tub at the awesome indoor grotto on campus. Another time a few of us gossiped there, seated at the bar, about how James Franco had been sighted in town that weekend for the annual documentary festival. 

I remember those two years with reality but also with much fondness. 

I can still taste the donuts I bought from Starbucks every day before class, until my savings sifted out. I hosted a Halloween party and a birthday party when Kansas turned 150. I made lentil tacos for two boys who were roommates and asked one of them to chop the onion because it made me cry. I went to a conference in Michigan and drove to St. Louis to see Anne Lamott on her book tour, then caught up with my friend John. 

On St. Paddy's Day, I think, we played Wiffle ball by the columns and then it started pouring and we relocated for beers and then I cross stitched on the love seat, taking a rare Saturday completely off. One of my best friends got married the summer in between my two years of instruction; I wore a blue sundress and had an awesome side pony updo poof and we danced on the roof of a cruise boat in the Ozarks after sunset. 

Various classmates took turns catsitting for Dibbs, enticed as I offered them full access to my extensive VHS collection while on the clock. And speaking of Dibbs, he met me at the door every night, let me sling him over my shoulder, already purring. He got fat in that apartment and then petite again. 

Michelle would have me over and feed me meatloaf and curl my hair while we watched The OC. 

I experienced some serious anxiety, depression, late night fear of my own brain during those years. I turned the TV on while washing dishes and ironing at times just to have sitcom chatter in my space so I wouldn't think I was going crazy in the silence. 

One night, on the phone with a classmate, I told her I was cutting up an avocado and she said, "Are you a f***ing princess?! Those are like a dollar!" I still laugh at that memory, how we were all broke but always found some loophole excuse to meet up at a watering hole and avoid our scholastic responsibilities.

I'm grateful for that time, for the education, for the laughs, the coziness. The faculty who took a chance on me and believed in me. The boys who flirted with me and made me feel interesting. The friends who I still text and call and wish I could get together with on more frequent occasion. That February clothing swap while it rained and we sipped red wine and told each other how great we all looked in each other's old duds, giddily clutching wads of cotton skirts and jackets as you dashed to your cars! Such a great afternoon. 

One decade later I'm obviously reflective, evaluating where to go in my career, my dreams, my relationship with words on a page. I've spent the last several years being both jealous of my classmates and also knowing that a hard news pursuit was never the one I was after. 

My self esteem has suffered and then suffered some more, but recently my brain doesn't find it too out of line to imagine writing a book, starting at an entry level marketing position, working my way up to be an HR recruiter, moving to Australia, hand sewing a quilt. 

Life seems, so far, to be a wearing journey through confidence and angst and finding sudden, unexplained pure peace in a moment when distant trees somehow tingle my edges and I know that I'm totally, a thousand percent OK. 

My future is a big old question mark. My present is a lot of tidying, shuffling, hand stitching. Dreaming. My past holds, in part, Mizzou, and I do love that, even if it wasn't perfect. 

May you all find your way. And may I mine. Always with a tiger tabby cat to mascot me through. 

XO. M-I-Z.