Well folks it’s that time of year again. The time of year when silent snowfall blankets evergreen boughs while we snuggle warm in our beds visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads.
Alright fine none of that actually transpires during autumn months on the sunny shores of Malibu.
Nonetheless it’s the time of year when even the most nonpartisan yogurt fans flock en masse to purchase the fabled Pumpkin Pie flavored yogurt. Why it’s not offered year-round I’ll never know but on select days between Halloween and Thanksgiving one can experience the delectable goodness of the holidays in the comfort of a paper yogurt cup. I only wish the future could be as dependable and pleasant.
It’s also that time of year when questions about the future scroll through my head like ticker tape. What to do… what to do? Next semester and in the great nebulous universe beyond the outfield fence. I have a date and time judiciously assigned to me by OneStop on which I may wake from my cozy wintertime bed and register for Spring classes— the last schedule I will be compiling as a Pepperdine student. Thus as a last-timer I impart to you my loyal or happenstance readers a nugget of semesterly wisdom.
Dear freshmen this is the first and last time you are at the bottom of the scheduling totem pole. Even four year plans fail. With a little luck and summer school you too will walk once upon a springtime. Dear sophomores I promise you it’s not a slump. Dear juniors maybe you should declare your major.
Dear faint of heart be not afraid to ask for help. Dear seniors be nice to your professors; they write your recommendation letters. Fear not we all have our seasons of uncertainty and this is mine.
These thoughts occupied my mind on Sunday evening’s shift at the yogurt shop as a young woman paid me a visit which she usually does on evenings relatively free from her business school fetters. She animatedly told me about how she knew and loved everyone in her tiny grad program. A 25-year-old in her first year of a masters she believes with all her heart that braving the lean and hungry work force after graduation is the best way to figure out what you want. Little did she know I read her words like the Bible.
Later in the evening her advice still on repeat in my head I battled fiercely with the ice cream case knocking loose ice crystals from the sides as I scraped together a ball of mint chocolate chip. “Let it snow let it snow let it snow jingled in my head. The recipient of this child-sized creation was a parent, taking dessert home to his no doubt adorable family. I envied him and his settled contentedness. I decided then and there that my aspiration is to be a Malibu mom, bringing take-out dessert to hearth and home. Still later, as I shot the breeze with my coworker, we compared our past weekends. He spent five hours in a fluorescent-lit room, filling lettered circles known as the GRE. … I spent that same time slot in a salon chair at the Toni and Guy school, allowing a wet-headed hair dressing student to dump bleach on my head. That familiar tick-tocking fear about grad schools reared its ugly head, and I resolved to apply to new master’s programs in far off lands like Texas.
From where I stand behind my cash register, the view of my future changes more frequently than yogurt flavors.
One thing is for certain: Pumpkin Pie yogurt will be back on the 24th of this month. Don’t blink, you could miss it. And that goes for the future too.