“yes”
Yes
Published in Calliope Art & Literary Magazine - Fall 2024
“But really Ms. Sulick, I’m nothing special,” said the seventeen year-old senior sitting across from me. I stared at her for a moment, her messy hair tumbling over her uniform polo. I leaned on the chair’s armrest, softened my eyes, and then spoke.
“Gracie,” I said, pausing. She was my first college essay client at the school, and at that point, I didn’t know how to be an adult with these high school seniors because I, in some ways, still felt like a high school senior. I also wasn’t sure how I would structure this job around the insecurities I harbored regarding my abilities. I didn’t think I was educated enough, experienced enough, or impressive enough to have this job. I didn’t think anyone would work with me because they’d be able to see right past my smile and into who I felt I was: unsure, unconfident, unskilled.
Gracie was the first student to book an appointment with me for college essay assistance, and that blind trust she had in my guidance meant something to me. Without any real sense of sureness in my abilities, I mustered every bit of psychology major-meets sorority girl-meets oldest sister I had left in me, and continued.
“Of course you’re special. For one, I just read through the brainstorming activities you completed and saw that you teach local girls to surf,” I said.
There it was—that blind trust. I could see it on her face, in her eyes, in the way her shoulders pulled up and back just slightly as I associated the word special with her. She nodded; I continued.
“That is pretty amazing. Plus, you’re applying to mostly southern and midwest schools that don’t have that surf culture we were all raised with here, so that could set you apart. Why don’t you try writing your personal statement about that?”
Gracie smiled as she told me she would try that, and she’d have a draft for me as soon as she could. I grinned through my words: “Okay great! Send me anything you have anytime you want!” and told her she could leave the door open on her way out. As Gracie left the room, I stared down at the giant desk calendar in the office I was borrowing from the director of college counseling. I’d been helpful, yet I still felt as much of a fraud as I did before, just… maybe…a little less so.
Society isn’t too fond of teenagers. Nervous laughter, “good luck with that one, mom and dad!” and rolling eyes are usually part of the conversation when teenagers are involved. In actuality, they’re simple beings.
I believe teenagers should be our ultimate source of inspiration; their brutalness and beauty come together to form something brutiful. Life itself is brutiful, and teenagers accept this when other age groups can’t fathom ever doing so. Teenagers are admirable, strange, wonderful creatures. One would hope I think that, seeing as my entire work life is spent thinking about, coaching, talking with, building up, editing the work of, laughing with (and sometimes at) and constantly communicating with teenagers. The bulk of my workday is spent as an essay specialist in a Catholic school’s college counseling department. I am the first to hold this position at the school, meaning that the job is mine to shape; this provides a sense of freedom and excitement, but it also occasionally leaves me deeply overwhelmed and wildly insecure.
This school is lucky enough to have five full-time college counselors (plus one who specializes in college athletic recruitment) that expertly serve our juniors and seniors with total dedication. Although we are employed at a Catholic school that is considered small compared to local public schools, the caseloads of these five women are hefty. Still, they work tirelessly to be present with each student as best they can.
There is almost nothing about their job that could be considered easy. In addition to the general tasks, meetings, and relationships that come with the job, college counselors must walk with seniors as they embark on their individual path that heads towards their future. On their path, each student carries stories within them: the story they tell themselves about who they are and what they’re capable of, the story others have crafted about them, and the story of what they believe their future will hold.
College counselors hold their students’ stories close, and each narrative informs interactions. One meeting may be filled with a student’s total belief in themselves for this next step; the next may be a struggle to get through as the student is dealing with some pressure-filled combination of stressors from schoolwork, extracurricular activities, family life, and trouble within their inner world. In every meeting, our college counselors don’t have time to regroup and shake off the energy of the previous student as they prepare to be with the next one. I quickly learned my role would be similar.
I read dozens of college essays weekly, some of which are easier to get through than others. Some of the essays leave me so emotionally tangled that I have to walk outside the office to stand in the sun and do the 5-4-3-2-1 skill for anxiety. Students bravely chronicle their stories; recounting bullying they’ve experienced, dealing with one or both parents having substance issues, holding up their surviving family after the death of a sibling or parent, the unspeakable difficulty of identifying as LGBTQ+ while attending a Catholic school, and fighting moment-to-moment through all-consuming mental health challenges. The quiet, unrelenting resiliency I have found in each of my students has cellularly changed me.
Nearly every student who submits an essay for me to read attaches a disclaimer like this:
This essay isn’t that good, and really, it’s more of a draft, so please don’t judge me!!! I will work on this more—I promise!
To me, this statement, however it appears, translates to this:
“Please don’t reject me.”
And so I keep that in mind in my constructive comments, in the event that I tell a student to delete their entire essay and start over, in the frustrated messages I send to students who don’t give me their work in time for our appointment. Don’t reject me. That phrase carries a heavy weight, and is tied to painful, fraying, oftentimes traumatic threads in each student.
I’ve found that this job is also about redirecting that piercing sense of rejection students have within them. Although it isn’t my job to get that rejection out of their system, it is my job to allow them to be as they are, with all their hurt and all those stories they have within them, and let them rest. To let them rest in the unchanging fact that I will not reject them. To let them breathe in a sense of unbending acceptance that is so radical for most of them. Anyone who works in college counseling (maybe I should say anyone who cares about the job) knows that probably 90% of what we do is about validation. My purpose is to ensure that I am seeing, hearing, and bolstering each student. I will not reject you, I say in a thousand different ways without actually saying those words.
Because of the nature of this work and the memories it holds for me, I often think of the seventeen year-old I was years ago. She once sat completely numb and fearful in the same offices I now meet with students in. She walked through the same gorgeous, idealistic campus, appearing elated and social, but most days, was just trying to feel the way everyone else seemed to feel. Most days were hard for me at seventeen, but I wouldn’t say the general population at my school knew that. I know the same to be true for my students; the ones who seem to be the most joyous, involved and content kids on campus are usually the ones who have the most difficult time. My suspicions are confirmed the second I read their essay that details their experiences and how they had no choice but to rise.
High school seniors exist in a perpetual “in-between”; they’re not fully ready for all that comes with college, but are not totally excited about high school anymore. They’re over the strict curfew and overbearing presence their parents provide, but they can’t quite imagine a life without home-cooked meals and the normalcy of a years-old routine with their siblings and parents. This in-between time holds a sort of sacredness for me. Here they are, sitting across from me in all their teenage glory, carrying all their childhood wounds, existing and moving forward in spite of all the forces against them, asking me if their essay is “good.”
They’re really asking this:
Will I be loved for who I am?
Am I smart enough to do this?
What if they don’t want me?
What if I can’t do this?
Do I matter?
“Yes,” I begin. “I made a few edits for grammar and word choice, and added a few suggestions for structure and content, but overall, yes, this essay is good!”
Although not nearly every essay is conventionally “good,” I consciously make an effort to say one thing is “good”, be it their attempt at descriptive writing, one overlooked sentence that strikes me as powerful, or even just the fact that they put sincere words on a blank page.
My yes to their question of “is this good?” is somehow more profound than anything else I say. When I begin my answer with that word—at the sound of that first syllable—I can feel the biting tension in the room begin to ease. With my yes, they shapeshift, leaving their rugged, hardened frame and leaning into the sudden trust that my utterance of a three-letter word provides. With my yes, they begin to see, even if it’s just for a moment, that maybe they do deserve to get what they want.
The effect that my “yes” has on my students has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with acting on that built-in, often-ignored empathy we all have as humans. I sometimes struggle to act on that empathy in my daily life; I want to tell students that I can’t possibly read another rendition of that TCU core value-based supplemental essay or that I know they can do better than what they just submitted to me. It is often a challenge for me to reassess the situation and become centered again, but once I’m able to separate out all the things in the way of connecting with the kid in front of me, I can hear myself. My true inner voice is always reminding me of each student’s youth, their pain, and their desire to be loved.
In all of my “yes”’s that allow students to relax into freedom for a moment, I have inadvertently freed myself, too. I see myself—especially who I was at seventeen—in every student. All those insecurities—the voice that longed for me to believe I was inherently bad at this job, the stomachache I’d get before meeting with students, the constant thought loop of “did I do enough?”—are not factors any longer. All my work with students feels intuitive, like it’s always been part of me, just waiting for me to say yes.
“my marys”
Published in Calliope Art & Literary Magazine - Fall 2021
Spaghetti, a side of zucchini, and garlic toast was my great grandmother’s sacred meal. We ate it as a family on the first night of each lake house trip, laughing and conversing as our sunburned faces had spots of spaghetti sauce on them. This meal signified the suspension of the buzz of everyday life for the coming days in the mountains. My great grandmother always sat at the end of the long dining room table with a napkin tucked into the collar of her shirt so her outfit wouldn’t get stained. She’d sit there smiling at us all throughout dinner, intently listening to our troubles and triumphs.
My great grandparents Chuck and Mary Therese Chodzko bought a small house in Lake Arrowhead, California in the 70s. In the 90s they tore down the house and turned it into a home where every member of their expanding family had space to rest. Mary Therese put a sign above the front door that read “maison des'enfants”, which translates to “house of the children”. In the coming years, that would ring true—as of now, Mary Therese has 15 grandchildren and 27 (and counting) great grandchildren.
Being the wonderful Irish Catholic woman she was, Mary Therese put a white statue of the Blessed Mother in her classic form—hands gently outstretched with her veil cascading down her shoulders— in the corner of the backyard in between flowerbeds. She watched over as our massive family spent hours there together for over thirty years. The Blessed Mother statue was a representation of what it meant to be in this family— you loved as she loved, fought as she fought, and had the tenacity that she had in all the tough times.
Under sad circumstances, we had to sell Mary Therese and Chuck’s Lake Arrowhead house and leave behind its spaghetti dinners and floral bedspreads and sepia-tinted memories in 2017. My extended family and I went up to spend one last weekend in the house and packed up all the extra things that were left behind. I did one last tearful walk-through of the house and looked towards the backyard. There stood the Blessed Mother statue, worn by years of mountain weather, cracked in some spots from stray pinecones falling on her as the seasons changed, not-so-white anymore from all the time spent outside, but still as beautiful and as treasured as ever. I dusted off some spiderwebs, awkwardly leaned down to pick Mary up, and took her into the house with me.
“We’re taking Mary with us, mom.” I said.
“We can’t fit her in the car—”
“We’ll make her fit.”
So, there Mary sat for the whole drive back down the mountain towards home, just standing with her palms outstretched in the middle of the car. She seemed large and powerful standing there. I stared at her, sort of off-put by her sudden presence.
~
The Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, the namesake of the song “Ave Maria”—whatever you want to call her, that’s her. The Biblical Mary went through many trials throughout her life. Keeping with Catholic tradition, an angel came to Mary and asked her to be the mother of Jesus. It’s written that she was around 15 at the time, and still, she said yes with complete trust. Growing up in the Catholic Church, I always found that strength to be shocking, yet admirable. Of course, the hardest thing Mary had to endure was watching her child die before her eyes. In consensus with the Bible, she stood there at the foot of the cross as Jesus was being crucified. People said disgusting things as he carried the cross, mocking the wood he hung from, and there Mary endured. Once Jesus had died, the men left, but the women stayed. The Gospel of John says,
“So the soldiers did this. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, and Mary Magdalene.”
There is no further mention of Jesus’s disciples at the crucifixion in any of the Gospels after that verse. The Bible states that it was the women who followed Jesus the whole way up to the place of the crucifixion, the women who stood and watched as he died, and the women who prepared Jesus’s body for burial. The strength of a woman is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I know that to be true through the Blessed Mother, with the women in my family, and most especially with Mary Therese.
Like the Blessed Mother, my Mary Therese went through more trials than most, and still had unbelievable strength through them all. She went to college, unlike most women of her time, and became a teacher. She married Chuck Chodzko, had four kids, and stopped teaching. Mary Therese started to feel different as the years with four kids went by. She couldn’t get out of bed and lost the desire to do anything in her life. She talked to Chuck, and he thought she should go back to work to get her out of her depression and anxiety.
Mary Therese returned to work as a teacher and felt massively fulfilled. My great grandparents heard a lot of talk from the neighbors because Chuck had “let” her work. He had always been a progressive man, and teaching was helping his wife immensely. Mary Therese dealt with depression and anxiety every day for the rest of her life, but you would never know it if you didn’t know her. She would wake up, put on her matching pantsuit, take the curlers out of her hair, swipe on her rose-colored lipstick, get down to business teaching, then would tend to her children and the crosses they carried.
Like Mary, she watched her children go through numerous traumatic events. She sat there, at the foot of her children’s crosses, watching as horrific accidents and a nasty divorce and a few gut-wrenching deaths hung her children and grandchildren on their crosses. She never judged her children for their crosses, never made them feel less than, never shamed them for their reactions to their crosses, wiped their blood, cleaned their wounds, and kept them going.
Like all good mothers know, you can’t carry your children’s crosses for them. You can’t pick up that splintering wood and drag it up the hill for them while still carrying yours. It doesn’t work that way. Mary Therese and the Blessed Mother knew that. They did what they could until it was simply time to stop doing. Mary Therese aided her children and grandchildren more times than I can count, once being when her son got in a car accident that left him without speech, without the ability to walk, and with his law career as he knew it completely over. She sat there at the edge of his bed every day, praying the rosary, and holding his hand. She said those Hail Mary’s over and over for weeks on end. Her hands never left her rosary beads, even as she watched as her son regain speech, the ability to walk, and the ability to practice law again.
In the early 80’s, my grandmother’s husband left her for good with three kids under five years old. Mary Therese dedicated literal years to helping my grandmother get her life back. If my grandmother was panicked and needed her at 2 A.M., Mary Therese would get in the car and drive to her house to hold her while she cried. Her family was so special to her that we were worth doing anything for—she called all of us special, and I can still hear her saying to me,
“You’re my very special girl. You know that, right?”
~
I often wonder how I can emulate the Marys that have always been figures in my life. How can I stand through the difficulties others in my life are going through, just as Mary stood through Jesus’s death? If Mary Therese can show up for her children as they carried their crosses, how can I show up for my loved ones and watch them carry theirs?
The white, cracked statue of the Blessed Mother that Mary Therese placed so lovingly in the backyard of her Lake Arrowhead home made it back home with my family. She stands in the corner of my family’s backyard now, her palms open, facing towards the pool next to her. My cousins jump in that pool now, washing the dirt off the statue with the splashed chlorine. She sometimes gets hit with one of my brothers’ stray footballs from them playing catch next to her. “Sorry Mary!!” they say.
Now that my Mary Therese has been gone around six years, it’s sometimes hard to feel where she is. She had dementia for the last few years of her life, and it was crushing to see our matriarch slowly start to slip away. Despite the dementia, there wasn’t a day that Mary Therese didn’t have on a matching set, earrings, lipstick, blush, and curlers. I’d go to visit with her whenever I could and she’d always greet me with,
“Oh, there’s my McKenna! My special girl!”
I’d lean down to hug her, feeling her loose Irish skin against my cheek. There was almost always blush, lipstick, or perfume transferred from her skin to mine, but that was the best part. It was like a remnant of someone I loved. A parting gift I could take with me.
~
On the day of her funeral, I smiled as I saw Mary Therese’s picture with a flower wreath around it. There were children everywhere, running around and playing tag on the grass patch outside the cemetery, but that’s how it always was at “maison des'enfants”. Mary Therese would’ve loved that. I like to think she’s up “there” somewhere, hanging out with THE Mary, telling her about the multitudes of grandchildren she keeps an eye on all day long. Or they’re exchanging spaghetti recipes. I have yet to decide.
“kohl’s”
Published in Calliope Art & Literary Magazine - Fall 2020
I’m five years-old shuffling my feet through Kohl’s with my dad. I’m scanning the aisles for new pajamas, but the task gets more difficult each time we make the trek to our favorite place to spend time together. I take these nights very seriously—it’s me and my dad “out on the town,” just the two of us. My dad works a lot, even I at five know that he works enough for me to notice. Still, once a month, after his exhausting days in the office, I get him all to myself. These evenings which really only last just shy of two hours seem to go on for days, and I love it that way.
The conversations with my dad make me laugh and think and dream and guess and plan all in the same breath. I usually pick out something pink or sparkly, but tonight I pick out something green and purple. It’s a set with pajama pants and a loose tank top with a swirl pattern on it. He nods and smiles, saying that’s perfect, Kens! I spot a pink robe with flower designs on it. I turn my head towards my dad, my eyes behind my purple glasses gleaming, a sly smirk on my lips. He laughs. Okay, fine—you can have both, he says. I wear the robe triumphantly around the store, and once we buy it, I don’t take it off for a week.
We sing Fleetwood Mac songs on the way home as the windows are down in his Chevy Tahoe. He’s a slow driver, but that’s good—all the more time I get to spend with him. When my mom asks why my hair is both streaming from and sticking out of my head, I gush about how dad let me pick out two things tonight and that dad rolled down the windows on the drive home and that dad put on “Go Your Own Way” and sang it with me as we drove around. Mom smiles.
Dad asks me to lunch with him. I show up a bit late and run across the street to the restaurant in my not-yet-broken-in Doc Martens, my heels yelling at me with every step. Fifteen years later, after the green and purple swirl pajamas and the pink flowered robe were pushed towards the back of my closet, I could not be more different; I am overworked, creatively drained, busier than ever, and I don’t wear pajama sets any longer—I usually just wear my Anaheim Ducks t-shirt and old dance team shorts. I stumble into the restaurant and place my sunglasses atop my messy hair as I search for him. I pull up the slipping straps of my sundress as the air conditioning chills me. I wave to my favorite server, who directs me over to Dad. I spot his collared shirt and clean haircut from across the room. I smile as I sit down in the booth, muttering I’m so sorry, to which he says, It’s okay girl! I was just responding to emails. I look to the edge of the table and see papers. Dad catches my eyes and says he has articles printed out and annotated for me to read. They’re about how to build a better morning routine and how to find stillness in times of panic. His handwriting covers the pages, underlined, exclamation point-ed and smiley-face-ed.
As we grow further away from each other because we have less and less time to spend together, we have to rely on these lunches or in-passing kitchen conversations or meetings halfway between Orange and my hometown to hold us together. These are our modern-day Kohl’s nights. I realize that these annotated articles are the new currency of love, the new green and purple swirl pajamas and pink flowered robe.