William Loves Mary... and they have the engagement pictures to prove it!

As my friend and I walked through the beautiful campus of the college of William & Mary a few weekends ago, the falling leaves crunching under our flats and the sun streaming through the rounded archways where we paused to take in the faint glimpse of the pure white church steeple over the tops of the trees, I stumbled into an engagement photo session.

The couple was wearing green (or maybe blue) wool sweaters and dark jeans. The girl had on boots that were tasteful but gave her an extra two inches, and the guy wore an expensive, but still tasteful, watch on his right wrist. They smiled at the camera. They smiled at each other. They looked deeply into each other's eyes, and then they both looked up at the perfectly blue sky, as if to say, "Thank you universe for radiating back our own perfection."

My little 20 year-old heart filled with envy. How could I, the awkward, single, often vocal and rebellious-against-being-in-a-relationship independent woman be filled with envy at the apparent summit of relationship bliss in front of me? I don't know this couple. The Guy and The Girl are just the everyday trendy but sweet, JCrew with REI stylin', blonde and brunette with natural highlights, Mac and PC compatible, drink water from a tin water bottle engraved with his initials, solitaire diamond ring that catches the light and most of his paycheck from about three to five years of saving, couple. I stumble across them all the time in their photo sessions in the spring at school: sitting on benches by the pond, at Tuck's Point, under the Bell, laughing at Patton Park or the field by Brooksby Farm. I run into their trendiness often. She has a tasteful but easily hidden wrist, foot or back of the shoulder blade tattoo, which blends an image with a passage of Scripture or even just a word filled with spiritual meaning. He either has a tattoo on his bicep which shows us his troubled but redeemed past or maybe he just wears funky framed glasses and a fuzzy knit hat pushed pretty far back on his head, and is educating his fiancée about the latest CD from Mumford & Sons or The Civil Wars.

All of that is just to say, why was I envious of this couple at William and Mary? Why did I want to be that girl with that guy on that bench in the middle of that photo shoot?

Other than the slightly boring answer - "I want to be loved, and cherished, and understood" - the funnier and probably truer answer is that envy is present whenever there is comparison, and even if I don't want The Girl's relationship, ring or boyfriend, I can recognize that she is not me and that immediately translates into wanting what she has (and what I do not have).

This couple is well known to those of you who troll Christian college campuses. They sit together in Chapel or in the dining hall, exclusive but welcoming to people who stop by their table. They keep their PDA to a reasonable level but for some strange reason have a tendency to stroke each other's wrists or hands while the other person is talking. And the envy in us (green-eyed and trendspotting) wishes that the next cute guy who pulls open the door would just grab us and sit us down at a table and stroke our wrist while we drink coffee, laugh at our jokes and generally grant us what we see as our "rightful" relationship.

But as I continued to stroll through William & Mary, and as I thought about the engagement pictures that would undoubtedly be carefully examined by the girl's single friends on Facebook that weekend, and the fact that whether or not the engagement ring is large, small, antique, expensive... whether the couple have known each other approximately 5 minutes or 5 years, whether they buy Macs and wear biodegradable sneakers or buy PCs and plan to go to law school at UPenn... whether they know of my existence or not, envying them accomplishes nothing, other than the sour mood and tendency to scroll through too many pages of Style Me Pretty.

It does no one any good to be envious of the choices being made by other individuals to be in relationships. After all - I have plenty of choices to keep me busy. I need to choose whether or not I come back to DC in the near future. I need to choose whether I eat Pop-tarts or waffles for breakfast. I need to choose whether I forego the cute pair of loafers I'm eyeing at jcrew.com or if I splurge on them. And infinitely more importantly, I need to choose to love my neighbors. I need to choose to do my homework. I need to choose to listen to the critique of my supervisors. I need to choose obedience. I need to choose love.

William chose Mary, Mary chose William - and the fact that their choices move them from "single" to "engaged with cute photojournalism photos to prove it" doesn't mean I have permission to envy their choices. As a single person I am often tempted to barter choices - "I'll give you mine if you give me yours", or "I'll see your troubling fights with your boyfriend and give you a lonely Saturday night reading Creation and Fall by Dietrich Bonhoeffer! I'll trade you my insecurity about my dateability for your insecurity about his intellectual maturity.

We don't get to barter our choices; we just get to make them. We don't get to live someone else's engagement photos, and we certainly don't get to have our cake and eat it too. The choices in front of us, single or engaged, second child or tenth child, sister, brother, friend, employee, student and teacher - are just that: in front of us.

So while I love William & Mary, and their Anthropologie meets 21st century Christian college style, I need to be not envious of their choices, but grateful for my own.

Love,

Hilary

One Step at a Time (It's Like Learning to Fly)

True Confession: The past three days, I've been listening to Jordin Sparks' "One Step at a Time" on Youtube for at least half an hour. I click on it, listen to it, and then right before the end I move the play button back to the 7th second of the song.

There are a few reasons I've been listening to this song, other than the fact that my Pandora station gets angry if I play more than 34 hours of "free radio" and won't let me listen to it after 40 hours. I think I'd completely forgotten how to go one step at a time before Sunday. I don't know what prompted my sudden moment of panic. I was sitting quietly in church, listening to the guest pastor preach about Luke 18 (the Pharisee and the Tax Collector) and it hit me: this program is ending, I have to figure out classes for next semester, I have to figure out what I need to do about extracurriculars, I have to, I have to... I have to. I have been trying to leap over five steps in a single bound, and that doesn't work for anyone except Superman.

The nervous, queasy feeling crept into my stomach. "Make a to do list, Hilary!" it hissed. "Write down all the lunches, dinners, plans, coffees, classes, etc that you need to accomplish. Get it done already!" And as I began to think about all these things, and get lost in the murky waters of "should have already finished" and "why didn't I do that before I had these other things to do!" - I heard the pastor say "Mercy." It was in a sentence, I'm sure. But I only hear the word. "Mercy."

This week "mercy" has been about "one step at a time." Jordin Sparks and the guest pastor at church probably didn't coordinate their messages to me this week: but nonetheless, I hear mercy in her song. We live and we learn, she sings above the steady, clock-like beat. We find the reasons why one step at a time. I've been plagued by feeling like I'm not on top of my work here, feeling like this semester is slipping away from me like water you cup in your hands only to watch it cascade through your fingers. I have made more to-do lists on more Post-it notes than the inventor of Post-its. I have written schedules, I have crossed out schedules. I have fretted. I have tried NOT to fret which then makes me fret more internally. But there it is: one step. Mercy.

Sunday the things in front of me were lunch with a friend from church at Southside 815 in Old Town Alexandria, and spending time with people in my program. Sunday the things in front of me included some homework but also some rest. And going one step at a time meant forgoing the judgment and the post-its.

Monday was different, Tuesday different from Monday. It's one step at a time. It's time's mercy to us: that it passes, but that there is time enough for the things in our care. There is time enough in the day. I listen to Jordin Sparks sing this song because it reminds me that I can't be powerful enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, successful enough, or organized enough to do more than this day's work well. Part of this day's work can be preparing for the future days, but I am and ought to be chiefly concerned with living well today. It is mercy because as chaotic and frantic as my mind gets, my ears still communicate the message of "one step at a time" to my brain.

So, dear readers. Mercy. One Step at a Time. I don't know if it is like learning to fly (or falling in love), but I do know that life is good, going slow is good, and that all shall indeed be well.

Love,

Hilary

PS. Watch the video! Jordin Sparks' "One Step at a Time". And sing out loud to your computer.

My First Almost-TV Appearance (and Thoughts on Expectations)

I was told at the beginning of this semester that before too long I would be a regular "Washingtonian" - annoyed at the crowds of reporters blocking my way to the Metro, huffing and puffing along K St. to get to Potbelly Sandwich Works to grab lunch, and people watching on the bus. I was particularly excited for the first prospect. I could be on TV! I thought to myself that first night of lecture as one of our professors joked about the annoyance of living in the city's capital and all the backups because of rallies and the horrible traffic. Golly gee! My parents/friends/classmates/random acquaintances could turn on their TV in little ol' Wenham, MA and see ME there, brushing past a reporter as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Well, after 8 weeks of no reporters, no impromptu TV appearances, one brush of Shia LeBeouf's hand at the filming of Transformers III near the Lincoln Memorial, and one 2 block away sighting of the reporters outside the Supreme Court during the hearing for Snyder v. Phelps, I was pretty mad. Where was my moment of DC fame? Where was my sigh of frustration that ANOTHER reporter was in my way? Where, oh where, was my big break into the world of TV reporting?

Why I was mad, I'm not quite sure. I don't want to be on TV, in particular. I don't want to be a reporter. I don't like big crowds and I thought meeting Shia was pretty anticlimactic. But I think that's how expectations work. We hear that such-and-such is going to happen to us and even if it's not something we want, in particular, we start to expect it. We are easily trapped into thinking that our experience in a certain city, college, job, relationship, or church will guarantee us a laundry list of experiences. Sometimes we don't even need to be told something is going to happen for us to create the expectation in our minds.

I imagined this semester would have TV reporters clogging every intersection between 8th St and the Capitol; I imagined this semester would be the moment I finally realized that politics is where I belong (and the semester where I successfully landed a post-college job at a prestigious but thoughtful, up-and-coming think tank). I expected to confirm certain passions and finally put some things (theater, science, math, etc) off the table for my future. I thought (I admit it!) I would meet a great 20-something Washington DC guy; I expected I would attend a liturgical Anglican church.

But today, at the beginning of my ninth week in this fabulous city, a funny thing happened on the way to the program building. I ran into my first reporter.

The location: Massachusetts Ave. & 3rd St., NE

The time: Approximately 1:03pm, EST

The characters: Reporter, around 30, slightly balding, wearing a worn out tweed jacket and corduroys, holding a small microphone with a blue and yellow station logo on it. Cameraman, slightly younger looking, wearing a blue puffer vest and lace-up rough leather shoes like the ones they sell at J. Crew, holding a video camera. Interviewee, who knows how old, wearing chunky framed glasses, a gray suit with a vest, and the most earnest expression on his face. Me, 20 years old, hurtling from Union Station like a bat out of its cave to hunt via echolocation (I love that word - echolocation), my bright yellow crochet beanie hat on my head looking like a burst of sunshine on this otherwise gray day, my flats with the sole coming off the bottoms tripping me at every crack in the sidewalk, my big bag and book of ASL signs in my hands.

The event: Hilary, with her bright yellow beanie, is barreling down Massachusetts Ave intent upon her grilled cheese & hummus sandwich. She notices that as she walks, people stare up at her bright hat as if they've never seen anything like it before. As she ponders the question of whether DC is the city where fluorescent colors come to die, she approaches the Bagels & Baguettes restaurant, place of the (now infamous) winking guy from last week. Suddenly, looming in front of her, out of NOWHERE, are three men: the Reporter, the Cameraman, and the Interviewee. In her startled recognition that her moment of TV fame has finally arrived, Hilary...

runs around the back of the cameraman to avoid being seen?

How odd. After all my expectations and frustration that I lacked a single TV appearance, when I was confronted with the actual possibility, I skirted it. I didn't jump in front of the camera and screech, YEAH! HI MOM & DAD! (It's doubtful that I would have done that anyway...). I didn't even try to get all annoyed that there was another reporter in the way of my grilled cheese and hummus sandwich. So not only have my expectations of the city of DC been thwarted, but my expectations about my reaction TO those expectations was also thwarted! Wow. That's a lot of expectation to crumble in one incident.

But here is what I learned from this run-in with the camera:

1. I should really think about writing screenplays or plays. I love setting the stage like that.

2. Grilled cheese & hummus is worth running across 3rd St for, even if it means skirting TV fame.

3. This city is bigger than my expectations, and it denies them every day in extraordinary ways. I am not at a liturgical Anglican church (the church I go to is Baptist), I am not dating a DC guy (as you have all read I am loving the single life), and I have no desire to become a policy analyst or politician (I want to teach), and the things I thought I would say goodbye to like theater, science and math are all still loves of my academic life, and I am more reluctant than ever to give them up completely.

4. I need to think a lot more about the expectations I set, not only about meeting reporters in DC, but also about living with roommates, my studies, my jobs after college, my church life, my relationship status. If I have this much of a battle with expectations over the sighting of cameras and microphones, what other parts of my life need expectation upheaval?

5. All of this, from the musing to the yellow hat to the reporter to the guy's glasses to the street to this blog, is joyful. At least, I want it to be joyful. I hope it brings you all some joy in reading about it.

Love,

Hilary