What Were You Thinking?! Walking Crooked.

Searching and applying for colleges is STRESSFUL to say the least. Writing essay after essay after essay, taking standardized tests up the wazoo, making resumes, visits, and decisions, all while trying to keep up with school, sports, jobs, and some sort of social life is like trying to be the ringmaster and every single act in a three ring circus. It feels absolutely impossible.

But, the other night I remembered a book we read sophomore year for lit class that really calmed my panic—at least for a few minutes. The book is called Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. It is full of figurative language and funny metaphors that I, proud to say I am a huge English nerd, got really into. One of my favorite moments in the novel was when one of the characters, Tea Cake, describes his life as “going straight by walking crooked.”

Something about his words really hit home. Though at times it feels like I’m chasing the circus tent up a hill with weights on my ankles, still trying to be in every ring at once, Tea Cake shows me that there’s not just one way to get to the end of the process. Maybe I have to look behind the tree to the left and find the wire cutters to get the weights off my ankles. Maybe I can cut around the hill. Or maybe for that night I could just be the tight-rope walker and not the lion tamer too. But thanks to Tea Cake, I now can see that whichever way I choose to go, no matter how twisted it is, I WILL make it through my obligations and applications. For now I’m just trying to take everything one step at a time…in my own crooked directions with the knowledge that I’ll get to the end of the path and really enjoy my senior year. All I’ve got to do is keep walking.