You Are the Author

I like stories. I am a writer, so hearing stories, telling stories, writing stories, and even mentally creating stories while I cook or garden are kind of my thing, My brain is always full of stories. So, here's a story about a girl who discovered that she was more than just the main character of her own story.

I am sitting in a judge's office for a college interview. It's not just a college interview, it's an interview with one of the Ivy Leagues and my top choice. I am a junior in high school. I have no idea how I will pay for this if I am accepted and I am even less sure of how I will convince my parents to let me leave home. But, I am ambitious and my dreams are bigger than I can clearly articulate in my broken Haitian Creole.

The office is stuffy and dark. Not in a muggy kind of way; it's more like the overly formal kind of stuffy and dark. The deep mahogany shelves are neatly stacked with leather-bound books; the impressing desk with the antique-like lamps; the rich leather guest chairs that warn you not to get too comfortable. Looking back, it is surreal how stereotypically "judgy" the office is. This space was designed to play a role and it is doing so masterfully. I am uncomfortable. I know my feet are firmly planted on the ornate carpet because I can feel them sweating in my ill-fitting pumps, but everything about the room makes me feel so small that I imagine my legs are hanging off the oversized chair. I don’t fit in.

The honorable judge who shall remain nameless proceeds to ask me a series of questions. I am president of the National Honor's Society and the Library Council, he asks what else. I am on the Principal's List and the Honor Roll, he wonders why my GPA wasn't consistently a 4.0. I made excellent marks for reading and writing on the SAT, he is concerned about my math score. I am involved in several school clubs and volunteer organizations, he notes national ones I should have taken advantage of. I rank eighth in a class of over 300 students, he comments, "I assumed you'd at least be sixth". The honorable judge who shall remain nameless was there to perform one role and he is doing it masterfully. I am not good enough.

This happened 26 years ago! But I have been in that stuffy office, hoping the judge does not notice the tear in my second-hand blazer, ever since. I have carried that memory with me, begrudgingly, to dozens of interviews and important events. It made me doubt whether I belonged, often living in a third world and never quite fitting in anywhere. It led me to question my abilities. It forced me to hide my background in shame for fear of being ousted. It took nearly 20 years before I realized that as a first-generation, low-income student who was also an immigrant - oh and by the way, a Black woman - there were systems and barriers in place that complicated my academic and professional journey. I did not know how to navigate these roadblocks because I didn’t know how to identify them. I didn’t even know I had those identity markers as a student, much less that I needed to access the proper resources in order to succeed.

Fast-forward to June 17, 2022. I am in the gardening section at Home Depot. I can see the sky above is changing shades of blue, but it is not yet hot. The plants, still dewy from their morning mist, are calling to me. No more plants, I remind myself as I return my focus to the endless selection of planters in front of me. A dear friend of mine recently commented on one of my plant babies (Tradescantia zebrina), expressing a desire for one. I am propagating an arrangement for her from my growing collection. I have been out all morning attempting to run various errands with little success, but as I consider how to add one more great find to my already full arms, it dawns on me how perfectly content I am shopping for gardening items rather than uncomfortable high heels. When did I become this person? I ask myself while also musing on how this would be the making of a Hallmark storyline. Suddenly, the phone rings, interrupting the plot about breaking my heels while running through Home Depot. Placing the item in my hand back on the industrial metal shelf, I reach into the back pocket of my denim shorts. I recognize the area code and brace myself.

Last year, I purchased this framed quote. I had decided to create a women's empowerment wall and honestly, this piece is utterly basic and boring. Literally, plain black text on a white canvas. But, the words spoke deeply to me. "Trust the next chapter because you are the author." This quote, found at a time when I was so desperately trying to find myself, reminds me 1) to trust my voice and 2) that I am empowered to write my own story. So, a few weeks ago when I traveled to another Ivy League for yet another interview, I brought my memory with me. Except this time, it was invited. Not simply as a life-shaping event from my past, but as valuable information for understanding the present. This time, it is an origin story to the new chapter I am writing.

There are many things I didn't understand when I bought that "cliche" little saying. There are many clues and foreshadows that escaped me as I walked past it every day. There are even more plotlines and twists yet to be written. But, what I do know is that I am the author. In that moment, standing in the gardening section of Home Depot, I decided to start writing a new chapter as the Associate Dean of Students for Student Empowerment, and Director of First-Generation and Low-Income Student Support at Cornell University.

Hat. Check. Boots. Check. Warm Fuzzy Sweater Things. Triple check. Pen. Absolutely ready.

The Submarine and the Sea

When I was first laid off from my position, there were many words I used to describe the experience: divorced, ostracized, alienated, severed and amputated, no longer valuable. After all, the termination letter coldly stated that due to organizational restructuring resulting from the pandemic, my position - which had been "mission-critical" to get students back to campus; the same position that was essential for helping students navigate being on a campus where counts and cases were the new normal - was "no longer necessary." I had risked my mental, physical, and emotional health for this position. Like many other higher education professionals, I spent months in psychological turmoil as positions disappeared, as friends and colleagues lost their livelihoods, as anxiety and unrest settled in the pit of my stomach. So being let go felt more like being discarded.

I was not an isolated incident. Research on derailment and how higher education professionals process job loss discovered that many of us liken the sudden separation from our professional community to a divorce or some form of dismemberment (Strietzel, 2021). But in the midst of these roaring thoughts and raging emotions, one image became symbolic of how I was processing my experience: it was one of me, now out in the open sea on a dingy.

I don't know how to swim. In fact, I fear drowning, which has made it very difficult for me to learn. So you can imagine the feeling of being out in the open sea with nothing but a small dingy can be unnerving. And it was… it is unnerving. However, it has also been liberating.

In the 16 months since I was "let go", I reassessed my voyage out to sea as an adventure. I was not "let go", I was "set free" to explore the endless possibilities and unchartered courses of this sea. I challenged myself and took risks. I wrote and got published. I presented at conferences, and developed workshops, started a consulting practice. I went to therapy and invested in my own wellness and development. I learned how to use my voice in the service of my vision, as Audre Lorde urged us. I grew a fondness for the sea. Her peace and her rage. Her beauty and her violence. And even though I was in this dingy, restrained by the limitations of its limited provisions, there was - there is - this intoxicating freedom allowing me to be. Allowing me to navigate every new adventure as a more self-assured version of me.

Throughout this time, there has also been a recurring alternative: the submarine. Returning to higher education felt… feels eerily like signing up to live on a submarine for a few years. The submarine is large, much larger, and safer than my little dingy. It has provisions and sleeping quarters. It offers protection from the elements and from my fears. It provides stability with its guidelines and structures. Naturally, a submarine is a better option than a dingy on the open sea! Naturally to sacrifice the freedom to breathe fresh air, to feel the sun kiss my cheeks and dance across my eyelids, to suffer joy for safety was - natural?

I've been here before, at the intersection of sailing out to sea seemingly aimlessly or climbing on board a submarine. I made the natural choice before without considering what I naturally needed. I want - I am choosing differently this time. I have experience navigating the sea, this time. I know what I need to have joy and safety, this time. This time, it is not between the submarine and the sea, it is between the sailor and the captain.