Road to Rocky Top

A year ago, I would never have imagined I'd be sitting here writing these words to you guys from my 17th floor room in Boston.  For one thing, I couldn't begin to imagine what college would be like.  For another, after having just to committed to Boston University, I'm sure I couldn't imagine that I would reverse that decision a year later.  But since my announcement to transfer came as a shock to many of you, I thought I'd offer some insight as to why I decided to go down this path.

College has offered me incredible insights about myself, my world, and my life.  I learned, for instance, what it feels like to have only an hour or two of class in one day.  I learned how to balance two jobs with classwork and a social life.  I learned the value of a dollar and how rough it is to feel poor in a big city.  But I also discovered what it feels like to be a number in a large, bureaucratic organization primarily concerned with money.  That sounds a lot more anti-establishment than I mean it to, but I don't know any other way to say it.  I learned how hard it is to not go home for months at a time.  Perhaps most surprisingly, I realized that I'm not afraid to say I'm from Tennessee and that I miss it every day.

With these insights came the creeping sense that I was not where I truly wanted to be or where I had thought I would be when I enrolled in college.  I am not trying to tell anyone that they should not go to BU.  If you're happy here, I would never say you're wrong to be.  And if you're considering it or think it sounds like a good place to be, it definitely has its nice perks.  But somewhere along the way, I realized I still saw college as that beautiful grassy quad surrounded by academic buildings, not a city street with a train down its spine.  I felt like, for all its benefits, I wasn't getting what I had thought I would from school.  This sense of dissatisfaction grew in the face of repeated sexual assaults on campus, a nearby shooting, and the administration's slow and stiffly formal response to the early warning signs on campus.  I didn't like being reminded that I am vulnerable and that even in a guarded building one of my peers might like to do me or one of my loved ones harm.

I understand that this is life: most people are good and wouldn't harm me, but a few bad apples make the whole bunch seem bad.  I don't think that by transferring I'll necessarily find a safe microbubble where nothing bad happens and everyone loves everyone else.  But I can't deny that BU's actions (and lack thereof) really left me with a bitter, bitter taste in my mouth.

And then there's the money.  When I realized the true implications of the cost of this school, all the years of debt I'd have, the strain it put my family under, then I simply felt insulted by BU.  They can build me a million dollar dining hall I don't need and a lacrosse stadium I'll probably never go to, but they can't properly address rapes and sexual assaults on campus.  Where is the disconnnect here?  What is my money really funding?

All colleges are businesses now.  This sad and disgusting fact is not one I'm happy with, but neither is it something I can change.  So I'll move from one very expensive business to another less expensive one.  If I'm not 100% happy there, hey, at least I won't be paying for my unhappiness 15 years from now.

I don't regret going to BU for a second.  I met some truly wonderful people here, and I had the chance to learn about myself in ways I don't think I could have elsewhere.  But unfortunately, I don't think it's the place for me to stay for the next 3 years.  With that said...

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville better get ready.

Ego Sum

Boston. My school, my choice. My choice? My will? I'm not always sure. Every decision marks out an indelible, irrevocable stamp on what is to come. What will be will be framed in the past, will fit into the mosaic of choices and deliberations gone by. My present now could have been in Michigan, Tennessee, Connecticut, anywhere. I could have chosen anywhere. And then the people I've met, the ones I know and cherish, would not be those I know now. I'd have friends in another town, another place. The present's hold on me, so inescapable, was founded so tenuously.

Would I be the same person if I weren't here? It depends on how you define self. Is self a soul? A personality? Memories you possess? Is my self Grace Ellen Oberholtzer, born on August 7 in Atlanta 18 years ago, daughter of Chris and Jane (now divorced), older sister to Benton and Will, lover of video games, hockey, and watching the stars on cold nights?

If I didn't have those things--if I stopped liking hockey or if my parents hadn't divorced--would I still be Grace?

I don't know. I'm not convinced. My choices weren't all free, if any truly are, so why then would I be able to choose to change?

I ask because I returned home again, and knowing self is crucial yet shaky when you return to those places you knew long ago. I sat in the church of my youth, where my youngest brother was baptized, where I first felt godly awe, and I knew I was not the same as I had been 5 years ago, when last I was there. I'm older, taller, less awkward. I know more about history, math, literature. And my old friends say I'm mostly the same now as then, but am I? Am I Grace, the same one who sat there in the pew half a decade ago?

I don't think so. I don't know what I would have said to myself then, or how I would have treated 13-year-old me, but it wouldn't be the same way I'd treat myself now. And yes, those years are full of change for anyone, but are 20-25 any less tumultuous? 30-35? Anything can happen anytime. So I don't think I'm exactly the same.

To consider that--my shifting sense of self--in regard to past decisions and present-day circumstances leads to the kinds of questions I'll never answer or know. I can only say that it would have been a different Grace on April 10, 2012 in Michigan or Knoxville or Virginia. One with most of my memories, but one building new, different ones all the time.

Who knows what they might have grown into.

Perspective

It's been a semester and a half now here in Boston. I've learned the hard way about strange grading schemes, hard-to-comprehend teaching fellows, and fishing for quarters to do laundry. I've also met some truly amazing people I wouldn't have found otherwise. People who stretch me, comfort me, and challenge me to be who I am as best I can.

One of my former teachers asked me to come back for her class over spring break to speak with her students. She said it will be an open question/answer format and I can talk about whatever I like, within reason. Which left me with this question: where do I start? What can I possibly say to a bunch of sophomores and some high school juniors about what it's been like to search for colleges, travel across the country, and live in a huge city with thousands of other students?

I'll start with a memory.

Summer, 2008. The horrors of 8th grade at a brand-new middle school were behind me; my parents' fresh divorce was ahead of me. I faced a new high school with practically no friends to meet me there. It was hot. I was bored.

What I had: a church community. A family that loved me. Brothers I wouldn't trade for the world. Books to read. New music to listen to. Friendship I was only beginning to appreciate. And a dream that one day I would return to the New England I loved and pined for. I promised myself I would, that hot summer before my freshman year of high school.

4 years passed and so much changed. I moved from house to house as the divorce settled down. I fell in with different groups at school as I learned who I was. I flirted with joining the military. I bowled as a Rebel. I went to England and Scotland and remembered who my god was. I went to two wonderful proms. I got a car and a job. I took nine AP courses over the course of three years and learned my academic limits. Back in Connecticut, my friends were fighting, falling out, meeting people I had never heard of, growing up apart from me just as I did them. But my dream was the same. My picture of New England, however naive, was the same.

So when the college selection process began, I didn't consider any schools within 500 miles of Franklin. Tennessee, I was sure, was not really home. New England was home. I shot for Ivy; when that didn't work, Boston University stepped up with an incomparable aid package, and before I knew it I was signing my name and my parents were depositing the first check.

My first weekend in college was the wake-up call. So many of my floormates were from the area and already knew people they could hang out with; if not that, they had made friends at orientation and the first-year service project I couldn't attend. I spent a lot of time in my room wondering if my choice was right and realizing the finality of being 1,000 miles away from a place I had grown to love, plus my family and friends.

Since then, I have come to enjoy my time at BU, but it isn't without surprises and struggles. Being one among 16,000 undergraduates makes me feel faceless from time to time, but I need only to remember that the people I care about know me, and I can find comfort. School administration can, at times, seem blind to the needs and problems of the community, but then, theirs is a daunting task, and changes can't happen at the speed of light.

Most importantly, I have learned balance. I know the value of my home better than ever now, and missing it daily only makes it sweeter when I'm back again. I've learned when to work and when to play, even if I don't get it right all the time.

When I made the promise to myself almost 5 years ago, I never thought I would end up where I am today. I have not found the place I left in 2007. It surely disappeared the moment I pulled out of my driveway. Its memory is preserved, but I know better now: a dream doesn't have to age as you do, but in aging you are already changing what the dream will be like when you get it, if you do. It may not be what you expected, but at least you finally made it.

for summer, for (the) fall

It was the turning point, we should have known that. Those final evenings downtown, under the white lights outside our coffee shop, why didn't we feel the sand slipping through the glass? Why didn't we hear the song the cicadas sang, the one of a life briefly lived, briefly lost?

They were prophetic, those ugly prehistoric bugs. The last time I saw them, I was too little to know--and just as soon I was gone to the north, their buzzsaw only a memory. And just so, they heralded another shift in seasons this year, roaring and churning, rising and falling in the devilish heat. This time too I was leaving the south, this time too I was leaving some part of my innocence behind.

Is there any irony in the fact I hate them? Hate the very thing that signaled my departure from home both times? I wish I knew.



My best friends. We all sat there those humid heavy nights, laughing and talking and joking. We breezed through high school together, even if we were only close the final year or two. We waited impatiently and counted down the days until we left for our new "homes," the next step of academia and the gateway to adulthood.

And one by one, we left. Some of us checked out long before our cars had left the driveway. Others claimed reluctance. But we all went. Even those who stayed behind--they're gone now, aren't they? The ones you sat in Algebra with, the ones you clowned around with at lunch. We all left.

And so on the day I stepped onto the plane, I too left. I left behind my family, my town, my sweet tea and beautiful park and church and city. I was excited. I haven't been disappointed. Instead I've been surprised by what I miss. I've been surprised by how much I miss the place I thought I hated, and how much I look forward to going home again. I've been surprised by how reluctant I am to let my faint accent disappear, how much I miss Sonic after a football game or open mic and the Blue Ridge Mountains on the way to visit Chattanooga.


I spent so long waiting for the north again that I forgot what made it so special in the first place: my innocence, my old house, my small town--but most importantly, my family and friends. I'm here again. So many of them are not.



I'll go home to Franklin someday sooner than I know, I'm sure--the days here slip by faster than I can name them, and it's true I love my school and the people I'm around. But I got what I wanted only to discover that perhaps I was missing the biggest parts of all, and that has been the single most important thing college has taught me so far.

A Short Sermon

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. How many times have we heard those words intoned, seen them written on coffee mugs, wall decorations, maybe even Facebook statuses? So many times, perhaps, that the meaning has been leached from them, that the words have become empty, pretty things, nice to look at or hear but not really meaningful.

Lately I've done a lot of thinking about shepherds. I've thought about the help and comfort they provide, the solace that can be found in a familiar routine and friendly face.

I must admit, I have felt shepherdless many times in my life. We all have. Moving when I was thirteen and being thrust into a new, different place, wandering through high school, facing college decisions and being on my own in a new place again--if those things can't make you feel shepherdless, I don't know what can.

Each time, though, I have found another shepherd to help me through. In high school, I found steady friends to hold em up. In Franklin, the town once so scary to me, I've found the beauty of the rolling hills and the friendliness of their inhabitants. And, most importantly, I found St. Paul's. Here I found my true home, a place to guide me to the greatest shepherd of all, the one who endures despite all else. Here I found a gateway to the full life Jesus promised. I found it on a hilltop on Iona, in a cathedral in Glasgow, a ruined abbey in Dryborough, even in downtown Nashville. Not only did I find life's fullest moments, but I learned how to keep finding them, how to continue finding God moments and places I could feel my true shepherd guiding me forward. Gateways, we called them. Doors. Thin places. They are everywhere if you slow down enough to find them. Everywhere.

In January, things changed for the youth of our church. And I will not deny that I was left feeling unhinged, like one of my gateways had been shut. But I was wrong. We are all members of the same flock. We are all led by the same shepherd. Ministers may come and go, but the shepherd remains the same. And they're only moving through the flock, anyway. We can all find our own gateways into the full life promised by Jesus, if only we pause long enough to find them.

And so, as I get ready to move north to Boston, I'm preparing to meet new members of the flock and I continue looking for gates in the most unlikely of places. I invite all of you to look with me. You might be surprised at what you find.

Where the heart is.

This pipe dream. This impossibility.

Five years--half a decade--five years ago in August. I closed the car door on my past, watched numbly as every passing road sign declared how far away I was going, let the miles dull me to a half-sleep, a waking dream.

I told myself I'd never like the heat, the drawls, the conservatives and their sometimes stifling religiosity. I told myself I wouldn't be southern, I would always be a northerner at heart.

I still don't like those things. Still don't like country music or whiskey or big trucks or hunting. But I like the friendliness. I like my seemingly small town. I like the spring and fall here, even if the winter isn't good enough. I like the mountains and the city I'm near.

And the people. My friends. I love them.



I don't know what I am--north or south. I don't know if it matters.



And now, a choice. Old and new, past and present, a dream and an old promise.

When I went back, it wasn't right. My house had changed--the walls, the floor, my beloved trees gone, the familiar blue clapboard turned an ugly shade of periwinkle. And my friends--they had changed. I had changed. I didn't fit. I had grown.

Unexpectedly, suddenly, I missed Franklin. I missed home. I said it to myself, said home, and then I awoke. Gone were the empty disconcerting rooms of my youth, gone were my old haunts and distorted memories. I awoke, and I was here, in Tennessee, calling it home.



The choice--old and new.

The pipe dream.

Was that all it ever was? Five years of dreaming blown into smoke by a single dream?



Where do I belong after all?


____________

Sometimes

I can stand in the doorway sighing, watching the trees whisper and rush, counting the stars on one hand. I can shove my hands as deep as possible into the faux-silk lining of this worn coat and frown into the night, like I'm trying to recall something once important. I can relish the dark, covet the quiet, mute my phone and let the solitude settle around me, because sometimes

sometimes I don't want to exist
sometimes I feel so much older than I am
sometimes I am tired but sleep won't help
sometimes I like to be alone.


I don't have to try, in the dark, in the quiet. I don't have to be me. I have to breathe. I have to let my heart go on beating. But I can be anywhere, in the dark, in the silence. I can be in the places I have been with the people I used to know. I can be in places I haven't seen yet but I imagine I know. I can relive the days both good and bad and choose what I might change. I can be anyone, anywhere, any time, when I sit alone in the black blanketed silence and breathe and think and feel.

But when the lights come back on, I am me again, and I am not quite alone again, and my worries, my fears, the tick tick ticking of my time here on earth--they creep back in like familiar leering friends, tapping and pulling and nudging me softly in the bright.