Dry Your Tears, I'm Back.
Please, hold the fanfare....Confetti!? Oh you shouldn’t have!
Yes “Girl on the Loose” is back, put your tissues away.
Soft Opening 2.0
So my last soft opening was right where I am today — in my childhood home in Boston. And I find myself excitedly (and nervously) in a similar position — in my room writing and, yet again, gearing up for travel under my fellowship.
I’ve had a lot of new subscribers over the past months, so here how I described my fellowship, the inspiration for this blog, a year ago (you can read the whole thing here):
…I just graduated from Harvard College with a degree in government. Along the way I studied data science, economics, and national security. If you can’t tell from the sheer fact that I’m writing a blog, I’m rather opinionated and I like to share those opinions…
A few weeks before graduation, I was nominated for the Finley Fellowship after its committee caught wind of a previous fellowship proposal I had written.
The gist was that I wanted a chance to rediscover my faith (I’m Catholic and was raised in the Melkite, Maronite, and Roman Catholic traditions). More specifically, I wanted to rediscover my faith in the context of servant leadership seeing as I was about to begin the “adulting” phase of life…I would discover servant leadership on what I call an “extended pilgrimage,” visiting convents, volunteering, and hiking across Europe. I opted for a traveling fellowship like the Finley because I wanted a challenge and I wanted the time to do this self-discovery thing the right way.
Here’s the kicker:
I’m a 22-year [now 23] old woman traveling alone. I’m backpacking Europe…And I’m passing up a year of traditional work experience to invest in my ~personal growth~.
That proposal took me all over the world: to France, Poland, Spain, Ireland, Scotland, England, and even Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It introduced me to priests and nuns and backpackers and travelers. It opened my mind and my heart to new kind of success and fulfillment. I was the beneficiary of intense spiritual and material generosity. I wrote this in a reflection to the fellowship committee at Harvard, to whom I am forever grateful for this experience:
I set out on this journey to decide what part I wanted my faith to play in my life…I wanted to take time to decide what success meant to me. I was brought up in a Catholic household and in a Catholic school. The Ursulines, the nuns that founded my school, always taught that success came from dedicating earthly talents to God and the “greater good.” Success, therefore, did not depend on accolades or job titles or GPAs. Success depends on how you treat those around you and how you make the most of your experiences and abilities.
When I think of success now, I think of completing the Camino and helping my “Camino family” get through especially strenuous days. I think of quietly praying the rosary every day when I could not understand the words of the Polish masses. I think of having conversations about faith with the other young women visiting the convent in Jouques, France. I think of backpacking around Scotland alone and hiking around abandoned islands and finding ancient castles on the coast.
Most of all, I think of generosity. I learned success from those around me; the sisters that fed me and gave me shelter, the Camino friends that shared their food and carried my backpack when I got sick, Dorothy in London who let me stay in her apartment, the Fachons in Normandy who invited me on their family vacation, Jack in Dublin who let me stay on his couch, Henry in Steamboat who made me soup when I hurt my knee and got Covid, Sister Armida who Zooms with me every month to work around Covid restrictions (and now my knee surgery) as we plan the rest of my fellowship and my visit to the Ursulines in Rome. These are all people who owe me nothing, and yet give whatever they can. They believe that my journey of personal growth is worthwhile, and therefore they want to support it, expecting nothing in return.
Carine!? Where Have You Been!?
Well as you loyal, committed readers (which is all of you, I presume) remember, after five months of “extended pilgrimage,” I tore my ACL and meniscus right before Christmas… then got COVID on Christmas (but I’m not bitter, you’re bitter!). You can read about those ~scrumptious~ 48 hours here.
And thus my year of travel came crashing down around me. The minute my ACL snapped, I knew that I had ruined everything.
But lucky for me, I am wrong about many things! And I did not, in fact, ruin everything...
The Aftermath
I left Colorado, where I got hurt skiing, in January and got surgery January 25th. My second ACL and meniscus repair on the other leg (I am now, at least, symmetrical).
I had to cancel all my winter/spring travel plans: meeting the Ursuline nuns in Italy, backpacking Ireland, and visiting my Camino buddy Machine in Poland (hi Machine! Miss you!).
And I was pretttttty bitter. (You can read more about that in my last blog post.)
After my surgery, I thought about keeping up with the blog, about recording my recovery (though the market for readers interested in the confluence of ACL-healing and faith-development is rather slim these days).
I tried writing a few times, but each time I crumpled up the paper and threw it away (meaning I slammed my laptop shut). One day, I found my pilgrim’s shell from the Camino — the symbol of pilgrim on the journey. I put it in a box and shoved it under my bed, channeling the teenage angst that permeates the walls of my childhood bedroom.
I felt so…frustrated. Here I was with this opportunity to see the world, to think about faith, to go on dream adventures, and I felt like I totally ruined it.
The early days of recovery were such harsh contrast of what I was doing just weeks before: dancing in Scottish pubs, living out of a backpack, visiting monasteries, and (perhaps the most ironic) walking across the entirety of Spain. But there I was, laying in bed, crutching around, going to physical therapy, and re-learning to bend my leg.
All along I of course knew that my torn ACL, though a bummer, wasn't close to the end of the world. Like I wrote last time:
I could have hit the tree I was avoiding. I could have torn all of the ligaments in my knee. My Covid could have been more serious. ACL surgeries are pretty run-of-the-mill, too. I’ll be totally ok…in 6ish months…I’m going to heal as much as I can and think about all the amazing things I’ve already accomplished. The Camino, Scotland, Poland, France, England, Ireland…I’ve done a lot already and I’m very grateful despite being disappointed.
And there are far more tragic things happening in the world; it can always be worse and in the grand scheme of things, I was doing just fine.
But I’m also not going to pretend that I immediately FoUnD peAcE iN My PaIN.
I was pissed off and I was pissed off about being pissed off.
Silver Linings
The ~Fun~ Silver Linings
In my last post I hoped for silver linings.
Though I didn’t immediately find meaning in the injury or the circumstances, I chose to believe that there would be meaning.
And there have, indeed, been some MAJOR silver linings.
For one, with all the time I had in bed recovering, I decided to apply to my dream job: being a 100%-genuine-offical journalist. I had always planned on coming back from my travels in June to start my consulting job, but after feeling more ~empowered~ and ~independent~ by my experiences traveling, I took a risk.
I was awarded a fellowship at the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board starting in September. That meant 1. childhood dream job, check and 2. I would have enough time to heal from my surgery to be able to travel over the summer. Had I stuck with the old job, work would have started last month and travel would have never been on the table.
Without BOTH the injury and the empowering experiences I had traveling, I would have never had the time or courage to pursue a different career path.
Providential, as the K’s would say.
The ~Not Fun~ Silver Linings
Usually learning lessons…sucks.
This Fellowship was about exploring my faith through pilgrimage, through visits to monasteries, through meeting other people around the world.
And it was as enriching and educational as it was exciting. I met such interesting people, like Soeur Hélène in Tours and the K’s in Glasgow. I saw such powerful places like Santiago in Spain and Largs in Scotland. And I had such profound prayer experiences like my visit to Abbaye Notre Dame de Fidélité in Provence.
Discovering faith and purpose can be so beautiful and so exciting. But it’s not just that simple. Because the world is not that simple.
Religious experiences like mine are supposed to be hard (and hating the food in Poland apparently wasn’t enough of a trial for this pilgrim).
Actually, finding faith has to be difficult. Anything worth a damn — and faith is arguably worth the most damns — is difficult.
In my mid-year update with the fellowship committee at Harvard, I wrote this about my injury:
Up until now, my faith journey was joyful and adventurous. I grew stronger in faith because I was enjoying the process. Now is the part of my fellowship where I grow stronger in faith because the process is arduous. As much as happiness and peace are a part of Catholicism, so are suffering and sacrifice.
I’ve been reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. He argues against common criticisms of Christianity, one of them being that religion should be simple because “simplicity is so beautiful, etc.” This criticism finds Christianity too cumbersome, too complicated. But as Lewis writes, “it is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple.” He goes on:
Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up.
Here’s what I “guessed” about my year of travel, this time last summer: I would go on an epic adventure, I would visit spiritual places, and as a result, I would come home with a stronger sense of God, faith, purpose, you name it.
That’s stupidly simple.
I never “guessed” that I would end up in Colorado barreling towards a tree, forcing myself to fall, and spending the next four months in physical therapy. I never guessed that my romantic year of travel and faith would turn into a period of anger and disillusionment. And I can’t guess what this means or how it will change me.
So, overwhelmed with the power of this world’s uncertainty, I had to make a choice between staying bitter or choosing to believe that these months would be worth something, even if I don’t know what that is now.
And I guess that’s faith.
“Maybe God created the desert so that man could appreciate the date trees, he thought.” Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Back to the Fun Stuff
Ok enough soul-bearing, we like to keep it light around here.
It hasn't all been limping to the fridge, showering with a plastic bag on my leg, and daily existential crises. As I’ve improved, I’ve started ~warming up~ to travel by taking a few trips for work and family.
My first big adventure was to the U.S.-Mexico border. I was reporting on the immigration crisis for National Review during my internship (another big silver lining of my recovery was spending four months writing for NR).
It was an eye-opening adventure. If you’re interested in following my coverage, I was published in the May 16th edition of National Review here!
What’s Next
And there’s more good news. The doc gave me the green light a few weeks ago and traveling is a go (as long as I keep up the PT along the way). Just a month ago, I was unsure if this would be a possibility. I had a major lag in my recovery (literally couldn’t bend past 65 degrees for a month straight yay) that has recently resolved itself — another silver lining for ya.
So now, I have three months to do this thing.
Italy, Ireland, Austria, and Portugal are just some of the countries I’m hoping to see. I’m finally going to make it to Desenzano to study with the Ursuline sisters and see the birthplace of Saint Angela, the order’s founder.
I’ll be seeing some familiar faces along the way; some beloved GOL celebrities. Susanna is picking me up in Rome where I will be reunited with my Dreamy Italians from the Camino. Machine is planning to visit me wherever I am (or perhaps I’ll make my grand return to Poland).
I actually keep up with Machine quite often. Here he is, greeting my loyal subscribers:
It’s a truncated version and timeline of what I was planning a year ago, but I have no complaints. This fellowship was an immense opportunity to begin with and it’s only going to get better. Throughout my recovery, ordinary things — like being able to walk with my dog again or going up a flight of stairs — became small victories. Last week, for instance, I got to jog for the first time (…for like one minute, but still, yay). As lame as that sounds, I felt more grateful and accomplished than I did after my half marathon in November.
And traveling again, like these small victories, will be sweeter than ever before.
P.S. PT
So, if you’re luck enough to be in my elite category — having no more of my original ACL’s in my body (it’s now two hamstring grafts) — you’d know that I’m basically going to have to do physical therapy foreverrrrr. And especially during the first year after surgery, consistent PT is critical.
What does that mean for traveling, you might wonder. Well, same. I wonder too. But my fabulous physical therapist, Nikkie, assures me that a heavy pack an some PT bands can do wonders in a pinch. So stay tuned for stories of confused passersby as I do backpack squats in a public park.
P.P.S. Another Silver Lining: Spending More Time with Rocky/Being a New Englander Again
Rocco runs on Dunkin’, just like his mama!!! (Yes, Dunkin corp, he is open to brand ambassador positions).
