“Born for This”

“I feel like an impostor, yeah
Ain't nobody caught me yet
Playing hide and seek, yeah
Hoping you don't see that
I'm making this up as I go

Hold up, who deserve this more than me?

…

Say it 'til the doubt disappears
And tell the face in the mirror
I was born for this”

--Andy Grammer, “Born for This”

10-28-2019. Meeting award-winning Brazilian author/illustrator Robert Mello (pictured front row, far left next to another superstar, Dr. Anne Phillips). Who knows? Maybe someday one of us will call another one up and ask them to come give a talk at their university. Maybe this cohort will turn into a super-powered network of scholars and publishers and creators. Maybe that's what we're born for. 

In my Kindergarten yearbook, I wrote that I wanted to be a sailor.

At one point in life, I wanted to be an actress.

I had a short-lived desire to be a pop star.

I really, really wanted to be a newspaper editor for a while.

I’ve always been secretly jealous of creative writers (poets, novelists, songwriters) and wanted borrow their brains for a while.

I’ve always wanted to be a mom.

Sometimes, now, I think I’m meant to be the best friend in a romcom, but I’m not sure what I want to be, career-wise. Given the current environment, I don’t think anyone is “sure” of anything anymore.

Except the one thing I’ve become more and more sure of as I grow up and stumble through life, is that I always end up where I’m supposed to be at the time I’m supposed to be there—and K-State is no exception.

12-5-2018. Nick's paper "The Princess of Plunder Becomes a Queen: Batman Returns and Catwoman's Feminist Identity" was selected as 1 or 3 to be presented to our 801. What an icon  this future SAGE VP was/is/forever will be!

12-5-2018. Rebecca's paper "Dunkirk and the Production
 of  Empathy in Film and War" was also chosen, and I'm so
proud that she was able to cut her 30-page paper down to
12 pages and that her hours of watching a soaking wet
Harry Styles got the recognition it deserves.

Sometimes I’m struck by the vastness of time and the universe. Like, I get to be alive at the same time as the Jonas Brothers and Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift and live in the era of Harry Potter and Lin-Manuel Miranda. I get to have friendships with people like you, who are literally from all corners of the country and who have taught me so much. And no one in the history of the world or anyone who will ever live will ever, ever, ever have the experience that we’ve had together, coronavirus and all. This is just for us. It’s one piece of the lives that, maybe, we’re meant to live—like friendship soulmates or something.

But, simultaneously, I can’t help but feel that this is all sheer dumb luck. I mean, me? Scholarships? Teaching awards? I joke that my undergrad profs must have written me one hell of a letter of rec, because I still haven’t fully come to terms with how my life has worked out. Maybe this is the tiniest, tiniest, most miniscule fraction of what celebrity feels like: “Why me?” “No way!” “I’m just lucky!” And, sure, I think there’s luck that plays out in the smaller things: luck that I found a nearby parking spot when I was running late; luck that the weather was nice on my birthday or that I wasn’t on my period one weekend—but I like to think that there’s some rhyme and reason to my life, even if I’m not aware of it. Or maybe it is all luck, and I just got really, really lucky. I don’t know. (And I know that I’ve contradicted myself several times already. I’m trying to find a balance between fate and luck, between giving myself credit and feeling entitled. I don’t want this to come off as one of those “everything happens for a reason” posts, because I fully believe that even fate can be messed up. Just appreciate the sentiment, ‘kay?)

3-17-2019. Mikayla presents at the ICFA (International
Conference for the Fantastic inthe Arts) in Orlando.
Look at that smile! Youwere born to share these stories of
 trauma,hope, and healing. So very, very proud of you!

4-12-2019. Driptorch ft. the wildly talented Jacque
Boucher as a featured reader! I'm absolutely awed by
your creativity and talent, Jacque! The way your brain
works--wow! You're a gift to us and to the world!

4-12-2019. Dustin was the featured grad student at Driptorch and he read the first chapter of his manuscript, Love Child, and I'm obsessed with it. More than anything, this day solidified for me that I am so blessed to be part of this cohort and know all of you! You're out here pursuing your dreams, and I'm so excited to cheer you on for forever! #PublishLoveChild

5-11-2019. Depart Awards Banquet. Look at these award
winners, as smart as they are beautiful! BecKAW and
Mollifer, your names will forever be on these plaques,
just like they'll always be metaphorically engraved on
my heart. Thanks for showing me what being a Girl
Boss means. So much love for you both!

=I guess part of my inner turmoil is because I’ve never felt Impostor Syndrome so real as when I got surrounded by you guys, and I’m trying to cope with that. I don’t mean that in a rude way, so I’m sorry if it comes off like that—but you’re all so smart and talented, and I’m not lying when I say that I would sit and listen to you talk about your projects and your interests for hours. And I just thought, “How did I get here with them?! I’m not that interesting/smart/informed/talented!” I specifically remember having a minor breakdown sometime mid-fall 2018, either right before or right after Karin’s Harry Potter class. And it just kind of hit me that I hadn’t thought past “getting into grad school.” I didn’t have a “thing” when I came here. I didn’t have Mikayla’s trauma angle or Cailey’s love of 18^th-19^th century British fiction or Lexi’s memes or Dustin and V’s repertoire of work to build on. I remember saying, as a joke, “All I have is Harry Potter and cats!”

And *looks around room* that turned out to be enough for now. Because I also found out that I love reading about feminism in YA and close-reading song lyrics as texts.

I still don’t know exactly where this hodgepodge of interests is going to take me, but you guys have embraced my weird, niche interests and made me feel that it could take me as far as I want to take it: conferences or Ph.D. programs or articles or books. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for helping me grow up and find that confidence. (Also, if you want to collab on a book, let me know. I’m serious. I’d love to do nitty-gritty scholarly work with any of you goobs. Just don’t outshine me too much. 😉)

5-11-2019. Vilune Seskotaite. The world better work on
saying that right, because you're not going anywhere
 any time soon! This isn't your first recognition/award
for creative writing, and it won't be your last! You
 have so much talent, and I could read your nonfic
essays all day. Go out there and share your story
and your light with the world! 

5-11-2019. Noelle, you deserved this "Most Promising
GTA" award. Anyone who meets you can see how
much passion you have for your students and for
education. I think I speak for all of us when I say
that you inspire me to be a better teacher. What a
big, beautiful heart you have!

5-11-2019. Don't worry. I'l trade this GTA teaching
award for a "distinguished professor teaching
award" someday. I mean, look at that beauty
standing next to me. She's #lifegoals.

There were about 5 times in that Impostor Syndrome section where I wanted to write “I don’t deserve you,” but I’m trying to say that less. I know that we use it as a hyperbolic “wow this is too good to be true” or “this thing person/is so so so so amazing,” but maybe we do deserve remarkable things. I think you guys are incredible, and so, naturally, I think you deserve incredible things. And—you know what?—I do, too. (We don’t deserve the bad things I life, I’m certain of that.) We work so hard. We deserve journal publications (Molly! V!). We deserve fully-funded Ph.D. programs (Cailey!). We deserve to receive awards and get jobs and be accepted to conferences, and we deserve friends who go the extra mile.

5-11-2019. Hey, Dustin, when you make it big,
will you still like my tweets? Will you sign my
book? Will you Skype my classes and let them
fangirl over you? K, thanks. (Seriously, though, I
know you've got an incredible future ahead of you!)

So as we sit and prepare to spend another day/week/month in isolation, I’m trying not to let it deter me from my #goals. I’m trying to remind myself that even THE Plague ended, that life will go on someday, that this is just one chapter in the book or one song on the album or one scene in the movie or whatever other metaphor I want to come up with. And while this is definitely one plot twist I didn’t see coming, it’s somehow made me even more grateful for the time we’ve had together and that you are the people I’ll share this experience with.

6-13-2019, ChLA 2019 in Indianpolis (pre-bicycle incident). Lexi just before she presented "President Squid and Broadside for Kids." Whether you become "Alexis Bedell, MLS" or "Dr. Bedell" or just stay "Lexi Bedell, M.A.," you'll always be a star to me! I am always so fascinated by your ideas and  how you  process theory and how you can create a brilliant paper in next to no time! You're going places, Lexi, and I'm so incredibly proud of you already!

11-15-2019, MMLA 2019 in Chicago. Cailey presenting her paper "Animagi and How They Break Down Social Classification in Rowling’s Harry Potter Series" at MMLA. Cailey, you're everything a PhD candidate should be: absolutely brilliant, beautiful inside and out, kind and humble and put-together, and any university will be lucky to have you come fall. You're going to contribute so much to literary scholarship, and I feel so lucky that I got to watch you bloom here!

2-21-2020. V as the featured grad student reader at our last
Driptorch. So proud of you for sharing your writing (and
soul) with all of us! I've always been awed by that kind of
bravery! (Also heard from a little birdie that one of these
pieces IS BEING PUBLISHED!!)

You can fill in whatever you want when Andy Grammer says, “I was born for this.” Like Karin always writes on my response papers, “What is ‘this’?” But I think, for us, “this” is our friendship. I think we were meant to find each other and help each other through this crazy wild ride of grad school (that just keeps getting crazier, tbh). And, if that’s the case, I’m okay with whatever else the world wants to throw at me.

Love ∞,

Me