I just went to a Swarthmore event at the Marriott Hotel in Back Bay, Boston. It's been a long, long time since I've given my life on that campus a thought. When I graduated from Swarthmore two years ago I was a 22 year-old Theater and Biology Major with new best friends from undergrad, was jobless, had written one song in my whole life, and was moving to the North woods of Wisconsin for the summer before embarking upon music school. Two years later, I'm a 24 year-old professional musician moving to NYC in less than a week, an old college friend, and a co-worker.
Collectively, here's what I've done so far:
I've grown up in Wisconsin, been through college one (and a half) times, met people who've changed the course of my life, met hundreds of others who I'll never meet again, fallen in love, had my heart broken (two and a half times), dealt with anxiety, traveled to other counties, eaten some pretty interesting foods, read some pretty incredible books, read some shit I'd like to forget, earned a repetitive sports injury, taught myself guitar, and have never lived alone. It's a lot. And actually, a lot of that was packed into the four short years I spent at Swarthmore College.
It's funny how other people experience you so differently than you experience yourself. A friend of mine on the Alumni counsel was telling me tonight about HIS experience of me at Swarthmore. He encountered me as a young girl who was afraid of nothing except her own shadow, prone to anxiety attacks and yet painfully outgoing. A girl in search of her own path-- confident, yet full of misdirection; passionate about everything and yet nothing specific. A complete character who would show up at his office with parking tickets for parking anywhere except where was designated, exasperated that the public safety would have no sense of humor about old tickets being left under the windshield wipers to avoid getting fresh ones. I suppose it was sort of a metaphor for what happened with my degree. Academically I tried everything from Biology to Theater in an attempt to figure out where the hell to park my energy and passion. I ended up with a lot of tickets, and kicked out of the school parking lot.
I firmly believe that had I not experienced all of that confusion and wondering and misery and energy spent, however, I would not be able to write a song worth a damn. None of that was energy lost-- it was just research. It's helped me to become self-aware; to inform me in my current life. In that sense, though my degree from Swarthmore didn't prepare me for a profession as a performer, it did ground me in another way: I got a Degree in How to Figure My Shit Out.
I make it sound like I was a lost cause in undergrad. I wasn't. It just took me a very long time to figure out what I wanted to do, and I definitely took a round about way of getting there. But I don't think that's a problem. When asked whether or not Berklee was the right choice for me, I always answer, "Yes, because the timing was right." Had I not gone to Swarthmore and figured out all of the things I was NOT supposed to do FIRST, I would have sunk like a stone at Berklee.
Everyone is different. Some people know exactly what it is they are supposed to do when they come out of the womb. Others, like me, happen upon our passions when we least expect them, sending our lives into unexpected (yet welcome) spirals. But I think what we all have to be thankful for are the choices and experiences that make us who we are in this very moment. We can't take anything back. Life happens, and in turn it becomes the fiber of who we are.
So yes, tonight was embarrassing for a heartbeat what I was reminded of all the times I cried pathetically to my dear friend in the dean's office about "this existential crisis and the other." But at the end of the day, that is what I was going through, and this is who I am now. The only thing I CAN be is an alumn of my own life.
Yuck. Enough cheese (literally. It's all they serve at these alumni events). I'm going to bed because I have to drive to NYC in the morning for a show. I should just move there already or something ;-)
Goodnight!!
-<3- Lic
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