Dear Jay,
Wow. WOW! I'm on a flight from SFO to ORD, an airport and city I'd never deigned to visit before our madcap trip in 2023. You'd been accepted as a second year transfer student at De Paul and Loyola Universities and knew you wanted out of CSUMB. You had, of your own determination, and perhaps motivated by the gift of desperation, applied and were accepted at six universities not in of our home state of California including Boston, Oregon, two in Chicago, and another I can't remember. But when I'd learned of your acceptance at two schools in Chicago, I said, babe, we have to go visit. So I bought flights, and picked a hotel with a decent rate that seemed central. We made plans, and depsite the utter insantiy, or perhaps sanity, of this brazen, intrepid idea, we flew from SFO to ORD on a Thursday night red-eye in May to see if this city, and either of these schools, would be a good fit for you.
It checked these boxes, to start:
- blue city in a blue state - check.
- solid public transit - check.
- diverse racially - check.
- weather like SF - uh, no.
Fortunately "weather like SF" was crossed off your list of criteria after a school year in Monterey, California, where the climate was near identical to SF, but the culture was abysmally absent.
Perhaps I have a tinge of regret that we didn't involve your dad, but he and I hadn't been in a good place for four years since our separation. Also, you and I travel well together, and are able to navigate the introverted silences we both slip into when we're overstimulated and exhausted. With forty-eight hours for you and I to navigate Chicago, I didn't have the energy to also manage his capricious whims.
During our brief Chicago trip, I sense we both knew, intuitively, that this city would work for you. When we returned home I started my money-math obsession. Both schools were giving you a partial scholarship as a transfer student, but the cost was still 50% more than what I'd paid your first year at CSUMB. I involved you in my calculations, including my intention to delay loans as long as possible during your remaining three years in undergrad.
To assuage my money panic (because $45k/year is a lot of money), my mantra became: One Quarter At A Time, while attempting to financially separate from your dad. Would I have to move? Sell my home? Where would I want to go? But as a parent, I put that on the back-burner, turning that over to a power greater than me, again and again.
You also contributed by working part time, paying for your groceries, utilities, and extras. Thank you!
You said yes to De Paul, I said yes to paying tuition and housing, and in September 2023 we were on another flight from SFO to ORD, with two giant suitcases and two carry-ons, to move you into the apartment-style dorms. I don't think I cried outwardly on my solo return flight to SFO, leaving my one and only kiddo in a new city, thousands of miles away, but felt verklempt, certainly, with that multifaceted combination of pride and grief. That may have been when I signed up for Chicago weather alerts on my phone.
That first year, your roommates sounded crazy, or maybe just anti-social. You navigated your first winter in Chicago.
Anytime I felt worry creep in about you, your safety, or your nutritional choices, my mantra / prayer was: You've got Jay, right HP? I knew you were ready for our parental-kid leash to elongate and stretch, and you craved a city of your own, especially one where your dad or I had no memories, or imprints to tint your experience.
The only person we knew, actually, who had lived in Chicago was your aunt's mother, who spoke with such fondness of her sojourn in the Windy City it was a ringing endorsement. As I recall, she gifted you a beautiful vintage winter-worthy coat.
I imagine as I write this, of the stories and shenanigans you've collected these past three years. I'll probably never hear most of them, which I expect. Maybe I'll get the highlights, but the details can remain obfuscated and fuzzy.
During the past three years I've appreciated our marco-polo like communication, when I send you #dailycats photos, and you respond "cute" or "aww" or "I miss them" and I was reassured, in that moment, that you were alive.
Every few weeks during your matriculation, we'd stumble into a phone call, where we'd talk about everything for an hour or more. Reminiscent of our Tuesdaes, but long distance, our voices traversing unimaginable quantities of mobile phone towers. Sometimes you'd want my perspective, and I'd do my best to keep my opinions suppressed. I don't know what's best for you, and all I can speak from is my own experience, testing the water with gentle suggestions, and see how you respond. It's astoundingly satisfying to be trusted by you. Sometimes, I sense we just craved to hear one another's voice.
In two days you'll cross the graduation stage. Cap, gown, diploma - WOW. (Although as I transfer these words from my black notebook to computer, it's been three days ago, already!) You've earned a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science, were on the honor roll most, if not all quarters, and an officer in your Computer Science Academic Fraternity.
Before I meander into ponderings of the future and vagueness thereof, that everyone asks about, let me say:
IT'S OKAY TO NOT KNOW.
I invite you to invent weird shit to tell people. You're building a dating app for goldfish. You're going to travel the world by go-kart. You're going to pick up pennies on the sidewalk and build a collage. You're opening a bookstore for bumblebees. You're going to be a sidewalk mime. Anything. See if people are actually listening.
Time and time again, I've seen you manifest what you want, even if it takes a beat or a year. Go to a different university. Get a software engineering internship. Get a job at a coffee shop.
It's okay not to have a J-O-B lined up. Most people don't when they graduate. Most people get that diploma-placeholder-cover and stumble into the existential angst of their future. I didn't have a J-O-B out of college. It was 1991. Recession. I continued to work as a front desk clerk at the Hyatt in Sacramento, which fortunately paid my rent and bills, all the while obsessively searching for something better in the want ads (i.e. an actual newspaper, this was pre-Internet boom!). Five years later I chose tech, as you say, out of spite, which is accurate enough, and I will add it was also out of abysmal boredom with accounting. (Side note: don't underestimate the power of boredom!)
It's okay not to know what's next, but not knowing can be hella uncomfortable, and boredom gives our brains the creative space to reveal what we want.
You have a slice of time with few responsibilities and fortunately no student loan payments. So maybe pause? Follow your curiosity. Try some things you didn't have time to explore when you were in classes, submitting assignments, and studying for the next exam. Serve up mochas and matcha lattes and when boredom creeps in, sit with it. Boredom is a clue. When jealousy of what you see others doing creeps in, get hella curious. Jealousy is a clue to what you want. It is not a yardstick with which to measure our self worth against that of another.
You're smart, responsible, capable, competent, and motivated. Give yourself permission to enjoy your summer. Climb some walls. Poke at some code. Embrace wanderlust. Go on a trip, somewhere, anywhere, and marvel at what you see. Breathe deeply. You've done so much to get to here, and what we do for money is not what we have to do for fun. That last bit is probably a reminder for me, your Gen X mom, as you Gen Z'ers have figured that out already.
The other day I found the essay you'd written about discovering this blog. (Not that you need my endorsement, love, but you ARE a writer, and a solid one at that.) It's meant so much that you read this blog. You were the audience I imagined from the beginning.
I shall end this not-brief missive with:
I am proud of the person are and you've become. I am proud of your brilliance, fortitude, courage, and strength. I am especially proud of you on days you don't feel any of these things, that you fear you aren't these things, and show up anyway, as you have the past four years, managing all the things I see, and those less visible things I don't see. I'm also proud of you on days when you don't feel these things, and you take a nap. Naps are good.
I will always love you.
One million plus infinity.
Mom
