This Year

Back in January I watched a livestream event called "An Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall." John and Hank Green played a show that night...but it was so much more than that. Hank played songs, John told stories. There were readings/performances of scenes from two of John's novels performed by actors Ashley Clements and David Vincent Gordh, youtube stars Hannah Hart and Grace Helbig, and Neil Gaiman. (Neil. Freaking. Gaiman.) Kimya Dawson played some of her music...and The Mountain Goats were there too.

It was so much awesome contained in such a short amount of time.

At the end of the performance, the last song to be played was "This Year" by The Mountain Goats. This was a song I was familiar with because I had listened to The Mountain Goats before...but I had never really taken the song in before.

"I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me."

This lyric is repeated over and over throughout the song. As John and Hank jumped up and down and sang along I began to have hope. It was the beginning of a new year. January had just begun, and it was time for looking ahead and resolving to make the best of the coming year.

"I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me."

At the time I didn't yet know what the coming year was about to bring. I have been describing grad school to people as "the best and worst time of my life." And that holds true. There were days where I thought I wouldn't be able to do it, where the stress started to get to me and I felt so overwhelmed and that I wouldn't finish everything in time for graduation. But then there were other days where I found myself truly enjoying my coursework and assistantship and wishing that it would never end because I was genuinely happy living and working in Kent.


"I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me."

I didn't know how my job search would end up. At that point, I hadn't even scheduled my first phone interview, let alone an on-campus or a job offer. The job at Capital that I have now wasn't even posted at that time, so it wasn't even close to being on my radar. I didn't realize at the time how long my job search process was actually going to be. I didn't realize how far I still had to go to land the job that was truly right for me.

And now it's September, and here I am...making it through the year.