This might be the last “Who Asked?” blog I will ever write. The Pitt News is cutting its digital desk — the desk responsible for blogs — and migrating writers to the opinions desk, which I’m already a part of anyway. It’s unclear right now what exactly this means for the future of this column.
At the same time, my grandmother’s house was stripped on Tuesday. She passed away in January, and now the home that my grandfather built is being prepared for the market. A woman came in and ripped up all the carpet, took out the appliances, removed the furniture and found coins my cheapskate grandpa hid in a cabinet over two decades ago. This house that my mother spent her whole childhood in, this house that I’ve been visiting since before I could speak, will now go to some other family with no idea of what came before.
I think it’s funny how endings always seem to come all at once, like bookmarked little chapters of my life. The end of my sophomore year, the end of my blog and the end of my journey with that little house on Middleboro Road all coincide.
But perhaps just as painful and even more terrifying than reminiscing on the past is looking to the future. In a world where fundamental truths can be upended at a moment’s notice, how can we possibly steel ourselves for the road ahead? What comes next?
When I first heard that blogs were getting cut, I may or may not have had a little crash out. It felt like proof that one of the first things I was able to consistently do and feel passionate about is also the first to go when money is tight or reorganization takes place. What did that say about my future? When I first started writing “Who Asked?” I thought I’d take it all the way to my senior year and keep the shiny accomplishment of publishing writing every week on my resume indefinitely.
It was difficult not to feel angry or hopeless. Maybe I should just give up writing altogether and switch to a stable career in something like finance. Unfortunately for me, I’m not great at math. Then came the hyper-solution stage, where I started immediately scheming how to keep the blog going. I’d make an Instagram page and a website and maybe even reach more eyes than even The Pitt News could bring me. Then, of course, I’d imagine the monumental task of trying to write without anyone holding me to a deadline and I’d fall right back into despair again.
It was not too unlike the mixed emotions I felt the last time I was in my grandmother’s house. Over spring break, my mom brought my sister and me to look through my grandma’s things and claim whatever we didn’t want to be thrown out or donated. Suddenly, I was discovering little pockets of a life that didn’t exist anymore. A small box full of handkerchiefs, with one yellowed, monogrammed napkin from my grandparents’ wedding. Birthday cards my sister and I made, tucked lovingly into the bottom of a drawer. My grandmother’s high school diploma — a little pine green plaque, preserved shockingly well over 70 years later.
The diploma was what got me. My grandmother always said that she was stupid. She was insecure about her friends in Mensa and needing to repeat the third grade. She never went to college, and that high school diploma was all the proof left in the world that she had been an educated, intelligent woman. I knew she was smart — we’d have long conversations about social dynamics and the world, and it always bothered me that she had this poor opinion of herself. Despite having no real use for the diploma, the thought of just throwing out something she’d kept for her whole life sent me spiraling. My eyes welled up with tears in her dusty little dining room, and my mom put an arm around my shoulders. The diploma was added to the “keep” pile.
I’ve always had a hard time letting go of things. When my parents tried to donate my Barbie house to make room for a bedroom desk, I cried so hard that it still sits loyally beside my bed to this day. I hate getting rid of stuffed animals — so I mostly haven’t — and donating clothes feels like a personal slight to whoever bought them for me. Grudges stick to me like I’m made of fly paper and a breakup results in pages of poems in my notes app. Events rehash themselves in my mind, times I misspoke, and scary moments in my past, until I drive myself crazy.
But one of the most consistent facets of life is that everything will end. People die, houses sell, passion projects get canceled. We’ll grow old, we’ll move on, we’ll quit our jobs and break up and go off to college. Our lives are made of chapters that constantly close and leave us, once more, with the unanswerable question. What comes next?
Well, everything. Even if we freeze in place, paralyzed by indecision and overwhelm, the earth will keep spinning. And maybe, just maybe, we can learn to find something beautiful in the endings. Even when chapters come to a close, there’s something you keep.
On a spiritual level, I will always carry my grandmother with me. Her humor, her attitude, her passion for stories. But there’s also a stained glass lighting fixture that always hung over her kitchen table. Its big, pale sage petals perfectly complement the smaller slivers of emerald glass. I’ve always loved those kinds of lights, but I thought it would be left for the next homeowner until I got a text from my mom offering it to me. An offer I accepted.
I’m not done writing. Duh. I don’t think I’m physically capable of that. Maybe “Who Asked?” will become a personally published project or maybe I’ll find a way to integrate it into the opinions desk or maybe it is simply a closed chapter in my life. But no matter what happens, I’ve gained so much from this experience. I know now more than ever that writing is a vital part of who I am and what I love to do, and I know how powerful it is to bond with people over shared stories.
I am further inclined to go after the life I truly want, and someday down the road, I hope to write for a living. But at least I know that no matter what happens, I’ll eat my meals with people I love under a green, stained glass kitchen light.
