The Rose

A LETTER TO YOU, THE READER, SO THAT YOU CAN FINALLY FIGURE OUT WHAT I’M THINKING.

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THIS MONTH: Keep Your Head Up (and Shine)

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This is just a journey/ Drop your worries/ You are gonna turn out fine./ Oh, you’ll turn out fine./ Fine, oh, you’ll turn out fine.

This is just a journey/ Drop your worries/ You are gonna turn out fine./ Oh, you’ll turn out fine./ Fine, oh, you’ll turn out fine.

But you gotta keep your head up, oh,/ And you can let your hair down, eh./you gotta keep your head up, oh,/And you can let your hair down, eh.
I know it’s hard, know its hard,/ To remember sometimes,/ But you gotta keep your head up, oh,/ And you can let your hair down, eh.

-lyrics from Andy Grammer’s song, “Keep Your Head Up”

Dear Reader,

It stood there, among melting ice and snow, but it did not shiver. Evergreen branches clothed its roots, a prickly kind of safety. Its stem and thorns were a seclusive deep dark green and its petals had turned a musty hue of brown, yet it hadn’t wilted. Apparently, even roses get the winter doldrums; yet, this one had stood solemnly, like the Rock of Gibraltar, every day throughout the winter months, still blooming.

As I marveled at it, it seemed to ask me, “When shall it be spring again?” And yet, I had a feeling it knew the answer. The trouble was, I don’t think I did.

Because, unlike this unique rose, I had given up. In so many words, I was sick of school and thought it was pointless to go anymore. I felt I had achieved what I set out to do: to prove to everyone that I could succeed at the college level and to gain recognition for it. I had achieved my dream of working for a newspaper and getting published on a regular basis. I could quit now, right?

I mean, after all, the work WAS wearing me down and getting a little overwhelming. I felt entitled to a break to start something more new and exciting which interested me. For this reason, this month, I just wanted to apathetically drop my university coursework and come back to it later; but, the problem was, I couldn’t.

I quickly realized that my battle had not been won yet. There was still a fight to be had, and it was called the Winter 2012 semester. I had not graduated yet; heck, I had only just passed go — one time.

But, because of my success, my drive, my motivation, had been taken away from me. I was no longer in this for everybody else to win it. No, I was in this collegiate race for God and myself now, so I began to struggle with exactly what God and I wanted from it.

The problem was, I just didn’t know what that was anymore. I had become so good at blending in and getting into OTHER people’s heads that I didn’t comprehend my own identity. And, to make matters worse, I had cared so much about what other people wanted from me, to gain their stamp of approval, that I didn’t even know what I wanted from myself anymore. In fact, as I examined my life, I even found areas where I was pursuing someone else’s dream, and not my own, just to understand them better.

Therefore, for the first time in my life after a long time (probably since I began attending college at Taylor University in Fall 2007), I began gazing inward at my own educational motivations and pursuits. I began asking myself questions. What had I done? What was I doing now? Was I doing the right kind of work? And, was that work appreciated and worth my time and effort? Where was I going? Ardently, I sought the answers, because I knew the true answers to these questions would provide me with the balance my life needed to continue onward.

But, because of my entitlement and apathy, I found myself floating in a mirage of thoughts and feelings I didn’t understand. But, instead of turning to God for help, I tried to handle it myself, relying on my own strength to get me through it. I could just weed through my own consciousness and figure it out, right?

Wrong. Like in most cases where I skip relying on God, I began to struggle. In fact, I could barely keep my head up. My quandary seemed impossible to solve.

Meanwhile, my closest friends were graduating from their respective universities, looking for real jobs and getting married (or planning to). I felt happy for them, and glad that I had helped to get them get there in a noble way. My work with them had a sense of completeness.

But, as their season of life changed and mine didn’t, I despaired. They were leaving college, and I was still in it. This made me feel alone and left behind, like my experiences (and, thus, my council) were suddenly worthless and useless to the ones I cared about. And, unfortunately, this only deepened my confusion.

Consequentially, armed with a full-blown case of a winter-induced identity crisis, I quit my life this month. I stopped writing for the Post almost entirely. I got a membership to the Society of Professional Journalists and didn’t go to the meetings. I couldn’t make it to any of my scheduled appointments for the life of me. I skipped my 10:00 a.m. class, which I wasn’t interested in. I played hooky with my homework. I worked out, watched more T.V. and Facebook, went to church and worked at the pool like it was July. I went back to gaming on Andkon Arcade and wasted a lot of my time there. It was bad.

Finally, my mom got a call one day from my grandpa. He asked her the most pivotal question: “What are you going to do about Jessica’s motivational problem?” Sadly, my mom was left speechless.

When she told me about the conversation on Monday, it made me realize how temporary my success actually was, how much more there was to do, and how much I was currently failing. It was like a reality check: it pulled me down out of the clouds and into real life.

At last, we began to unravel the real problem. My questions got answered, and I realized I needed to lean on God for my strength in this confusion. I needed to be more like the winter rose I saw: in my yearning for Spring, I needed to keep my head up and endure the task at hand.

And so, yesterday, I went back to the Post and picked up a story. I went to class. I did my homework. I got back on track. Now, it’s my job to accept my path, lean on God and keep my head up from here. And then, in one way or another, like the rose, I will survive the winter.

Sincerely, Your Author,

Jessica Anne McLean