So Much Life

There are many wonderful things to be said about Hope College, but this is not one of them: the pressure to meet and marry one’s soul mate at Hope is deeply ingrained in the culture. It isn’t that students truly believe that they should find their “others” there, or that they run around frantically searching for “the one.” However, the thought slowly seeps into you—this is a place that is full of people just like me, a place full of people my age, of the same social and economic background, receiving the same education, of mostly the same faith, and I will never have so much in common with so many people again.

When I was in high school, it felt like the biggest thing. I remember thinking that high school should be the happiest time in my life, that it was the perfect convergence of independence and lack of responsibility. Upon graduating, the pressure to fit neatly into a category nearly disappeared; I no longer had to decide whether to be preppy or sporty or gothic or hippy. In high school I was unable to see outside of that time, unable to envision myself free of those teenage stresses and hormones and pressures. I remember saying to my Mom once during my freshman year of college: I never thought I could be this confident or happy. I remember saying to her, “There is just so much life outside of high school!”

So much life!

Having just been sent out into the “real world” from Hope, I am experiencing this all over again. Post-high school I realized that I could be much more confident and much more free than I had previously felt. I no longer had to fit into such a tight mold. In college I fell in love with the idea that we aren’t necessarily to “find ourselves” or discover who we are, but to create ourselves to be who we want. This exciting thought drew me to think deeply in college about the type of person I wanted to become and the sort of life I wanted to live post-college.

The trouble with that is that so often I don’t know who or what I want to be. At Hope I felt as if I had to meet my spouse and choose my career path and know all of these things about who I would be for the rest of my life. Graduation felt like a deadline—like by that time I had to know exactly who I was. Well, I am happy to report that since having graduated I continue learning and enjoying getting to create myself.

Last night my roommate and I had a housewarming party, and we roasted poblano chilis, made fresh guacamole and delighted in delicious wine, dinner, and good conversation. As we lingered over our meal, I realized there is a distinct difference in my Mexican crowd and one that could be found at Hope. Everyone was so relaxed about their places in life. We are all in our twenties, working at either PEACE or Sé Más, and as I listened to people share about their love of their work and their current stations in life, I marveled at their joy! If a collective voice could have spoken for our group, I think it would have said: Here we are now, sitting around a table enjoying each other’s company and sharing ourselves with each other. We are loving our work and loving this time, and we have no idea what we are doing next. We are young and thankful, for work and for Mexico and for the sun. In those moments I was overwhelmed with peace about not knowing what the next thing is. In fact, it was even better than peace. Peace to me is calm despite adverse circumstances. What I felt was excitement. and even gratitude that I don’t know what’s next, that I don’t have a predetermined plan. I felt happy and free.

So now that I find myself blissfully adrift in the world—away from the Hope bubble and the demands of having everything planned now—I can once again stand back and say, there is so much life still to be lived. There is so much creating to be done and so many dinners to be lingered over. Right now I am exactly where I need to be, and when I need to be somewhere else I will learn how to get there as I go.