Reflections on 21

"You turned 21 on Saturday? Now you're completely legal!" my boss said this morning.
"Except to rent a car," I joked.

It can get old when people ask, "do you feel any different?" after a birthday. Of course you don't feel any different, it was just another day passing. It's not because of the day that you grow older, but because of the things that those milestone birthdays allow you to do. Turning 16 isn't momentous until you actually pass your license test. Turning 18 doesn't mean a whole lot until you vote in an election, or sign yourself out of school without a parent signiture (whoa! dream big). The world doesn't change when you turn 21 if you drank every weekend from middle school.

But even for me - the rare, casual, consumer of alcohol - my 21st birthday felt like just another day. It was the bars that changed everything.

I'm only slightly ashamed to admit, as any innocent young thing would be, that being part of the midnight crowd altered my view. Whenever I drove down University Avenue at that time of night, I saw the scantily-clad girls and guys in baseball caps overflowing into the street, and, in my pride, scoffed at their behavior. I considered them lower than myself, because they were spending their evening drunk while I was out ballroom dancing or talking to a friend about God.

Needless to say, I got knocked off my ivory tower and slapped around with the big hand of humility. I knew, of course, that I would enjoy going out with friends; what I didn't expect to realize was that:
1)People at the bars are rarely drunk. Usually just tipsy or buzzed.
2)People who are slightly buzzed (possibly including myself) are a lot of fun to be around and talk to.

Now at the end of the night, I would hate for that fun and excitement to be what fulfills me. Because it doesn't. It's sugary, light, fun - like cotton candy. But you can't subsist on cotton candy. You've got to eat real food. And suddenly, I sound just like Jesus in the gospel of John, chapter 6...

I'm excited, giddy, and altogether astounded that we have the real food of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is one of the things that I love about being Catholic, and a Truth of the Catholic Church that I wholeheartedly believe in, though I can't explain why. Maybe it seems illogical. I don't care. What I have felt, especially over the past few years, in the presence of the Eucharist can't simply be thrown aside. And so, like Peter at the end of this passage, I look to God when things are difficult, when I'm so tired of fighting for my own will, and just say, "Lord, to whom would I go?"

This is it. There is no going back. Not to a time when I decry bar-hopping, and not to a place where I'm not Catholic. This is my present. Now I have to decide what my future will be.

*Exits singing "I have confidence in sunshine! I have confidence in rain!...*

Floooooooood!

Southern Wisconsin received a torrential downpour in the last few days. It's horrible to drive in, it comes into open windows usually blocked by eaves, it creates pools where there were none before.

And it floods our house.

Not a lot (mom, dad, don't freak out), but enough to cause concern. Our basement is carpeted, and 4 girls, including me, sleep down there. One of the bedrooms had less than an inch of standing water on Sunday night, and lots of moist carpet. The ground is so sodden that it's seeping in through the foundation, which I've heard whispered may have a crack or two. I never would have thought that this would be a recurring problem in the past two years. Something they don't tell you when you sign a lease.

I wish we could set up defenses against the upcoming storms, like sandbags or something. Not like that would really stop water traveling through soil. We'll see if we survive this week. We may be afloat before you know it.

Prodigal Books

By the grace of God, I got my library job back for the summer. I'm glad to be back - it was almost like I never left. Except of course there are now new people I must meet, and there's an odd sort of tension with coming back, because students who have worked there all year don't know me, but I probably know more about the library than they do. I left the library, but things continued on. The Google Project, to which I still feel like a godmother, was given to the care of another student. It's been a mini, subculture-shock. Life goes on without me. A necessary thing for one to learn in one's 20s.

One of my favorite parts of working at circulation is when a patron hands you a book to return, walks off, and only moments later the computer tells you that the book has been marked as 'Lost'. I feel a maternal sense of joy. Lost books are like children coming back home. I want to hold the book tight in my arms and welcome it back to the UW-Madison Library family. Books have to be gone for a long time to acquire the label 'Lost' in the system. Usually, a patron will claim that he/she returned it, then they find it months or even years later, and bring it back with a sheepish glint in their eye - a "you were right, I was wrong" look. I know it would be absolutely impossible (and completely against the purpose of a library), but I wish I could somehow retrieve every single book in our collection. It would be such a satisfying, full feeling. I like having all my proverbial ducks in a row - or rather, in a cardboard box for just a moment before I let them all go free again. I just want to have all the pieces there, to experience a moment of unity in a world that is fragmented.