Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes
howdy
Today, I want to talk about mistakes. Because guess what? I’m making them. And it sucks. There is literally nothing worse than the way your stomach drops when you realize you’ve done or said something wrong. To cope with this feeling, I subscribe to the idea of not believing in regret. Why hold on to that sinking feeling if there’s nothing you can do about it? Lately, I’ve been learning that the one thing you can do is own up to your mistake. So that’s what I’ve been doing, admitting that I’m wrong. So far, this tactic has treated me well, but I fear there are some mistakes that are not as easy to come back from. I fear that as I grow older, my mistakes will have greater consequences, and it will become harder not to believe in regret.
The last book I read at Kenyon College was Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery for my independent study. It was important to me that I finish my English degree with Anne because I have always wanted to be her when I grow up, and now that I’m graduated, I can. I’m going to be a teacher and eventually, a writer just like her. (Gilbert Blythe is hopefully included in this career path...) While I was reading, I remember thinking to myself, “Man, Anne makes so many mistakes. I don’t remember making that many mistakes when I was a kid.” What a jinx that thought was! Because now, as I figure out life postgrad, I empathize with Anne more than ever. It’s hard to be a human and to make mistakes. I’m just a girl with no money and no prospects I’m already a burden to my parents, and I’m frightened!
When I started college, I used to say to myself that I needed to learn how to be more than a student. I needed to learn that it was okay to spend a night out with friends instead of perfecting my paper due Monday. And not to be that girl who studied abroad and it changed her life, but I don’t think I learned my lesson until I got to Bath. Because in Bath, I wasn’t the “pleasure to have in class” kid I was just a decently hard-working face in a classroom of other faces. Since I only took two classroom-style courses, I had one foot out the door the entire semester. I did well in those classes, but I also realized that I didn’t have to try so hard. I could write a stellar paper on Twelfth Night without turning said paper into my entire life. And I might accidentally turn in a draft of my internship dissertation with glaring spelling errors because my Grammarly extension wasn’t working and still live to pass the class.
I worked at a bookstore called Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights (I know, sounds fake) where I met real graduated people with real paying jobs that they actually liked. I saw that they had free time after work to read books for fun and have New Girl viewing parties. Mindblowing, honestly. I also had the pleasure of working one-on-one with my lovely creative writing tutor Suzannah Dunn. Once a week, I would take the train to her house and walk up this massive hill (that in the spirit of mistake-making, I will admit I once slipped down in the rain), and we’d spend the afternoon drinking tea and talking about writing. What a pleasure and a gift those afternoons and days at Mr. B’s were! They taught me what I actually like doing (reading, writing, talking about those two things), and through that, I learned what it meant to be more than a student.
Learning to be more than a student is postgrad lite. You get to practice and dream about the pleasures of postgrad life while still existing within the academic dynamic in which you’ve been raised. The student-teacher power dynamics, the schedule, all of it is natural and familiar because it’s the environment you’ve been existing within since you were 5 years old. Then, poof, you graduate, and suddenly, everything you’ve ever known is pulled out from under you. You leave your friends and your routine to forge this new life for yourself that you know can be better than the last if only you could just figure it out… When you put it like this, of course, we’re making mistakes. It’s all a learning curve. Life would be boring, I guess, if it wasn’t.
It’s ironic that I thought I was so above making mistakes as I read Anne of Green Gables because the main theme of my Fulbright statement of purpose was about how making mistakes is inevitable when learning a new language, and students need to feel safe because otherwise, they won’t try. I should really listen to my own advice. The goal should be to find/create a supportive environment in my postgrad life, so I feel safe enough to try even if I make a mistake. Because this is just like learning a new language. There are rules and vocabulary I don’t know yet, and I won’t learn them unless I try.
Anne is famous for telling Marilla, “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” That should be the postgrad mantra.
Here are my songs of the week (the Spotify and Apple Music playlists are linked below):
In honor of Speak Now dropping and seeing Taylor Swift live next weekend with my summer camp bestie Priscilla Liu I thought “Mine” would be perfect for this week. I feel like this song is about the kid who was “a pleasure to have in class” learning that there’s a whole world beyond the classroom, and it’s tough, but she’s going to figure it out with the love of her life. But maybe I’m just projecting.
“Nobody’s Perfect” is literally the mistake-making anthem. Hannah Montana knew what was up.
“New Soul” was one of my first favorite songs downloaded to my hot pink iPod Nano. I love the message. It’s like a gift from my younger self to me now.
Dawes is an underappreciated band that I had the pleasure of seeing live at Meijer Garden. (I actually think Priscilla may have gone with me…) “Things Happen” is “Nobody’s Perfect” but for adults. Things are a bit more serious. Black and white have turned to gray. And there’s not much you can do except raise a glass to the past and look forward.
I want to end with “Second Chances” because it’s about forgiveness. I love the lyric “If it weren’t for second chances, we’d all be alone.” A good reminder that because mistakes are inevitable, forgiveness is essential.
Find the pony,
Maddie
I still can't figure out how to embed the Apple Music version...