A Mrs. Degree on the Horizon
Miranda’s college days were beginning to wind down with her graduation the following month. While at college, Miranda managed to make even fewer friends than she had in high school. Living close to campus, she chose to live at home while a lot of students found campus housing or shared apartments. She could see the friendship cliques at the cafeteria tables through the years, but could never find herself fitting in with any of the groups.
Stuck on auto-pilot for four and half years, Miranda’s main goal was to get through her classes with reasonable grades. In the meantime, she would work odd jobs in the evening, usually as a server at the local restaurants. In her mind, it was all that she was capable of in order to make enough money to pay for tuition and have a few dollars left over. While she sometimes felt left out because she didn’t live on campus, she also realized that she couldn’t afford the dorms on top of tuition. Living at home was, in her mind, her only option.
As college went on, especially her last semester, Miranda began to hate the college cafeteria. She would find herself sitting alone at the corner of a table, or if things were crowded, instead of trying to find a seat, she would eat her lunch in her car. Eventually Miranda discovered Roasted Aromas, and found just enough time to go there during her breaks between classes.
Miranda treated going to Roasted Aromas as her escape from having to hang out in the cafeteria. At the coffee shop she could study without the annoyance of classmates around her, and even if she just wanted to have a coffee and get lost in a book, she felt more at ease on one of the couches than at an institutional, cafeteria table.
Most days Miranda wouldn’t find herself at the coffee shop as early as she did today, but one of her classes was cancelled so she had some some extra time and arrived an hour ahead of schedule. Lucky for her it was a bonus with Ben’s surprise, a Bartholomew and a croissant.
Enjoying her croissant and coffee, she opened her laptop and started to get lost in the internet. In her soul, however, something started pulling her away from the tabs of websites she would normally leave open.
Pausing for a moment, Miranda looked around the coffee shop. In her head was the imminent ending of college. She wasn’t worried about the final exams coming up, she was confident in her finishing the semester with a solid run of B’s. The grades didn’t matter that much, and a look of submitting to her fate came to Miranda knowing that her mom had already pulled some strings at the lawyer’s office. She would have a job come January.
She dreaded the thought of working in the same office as her mom, but didn’t have the gumption to find a job on her own, at least not one that didn’t involve a restaurant or bar. The thought of going through interviews for an office job that she knew she didn’t want also made her sick to her stomach.
A vision of the next five years came into Miranda’s head. It was the vision that her mom had for her, Miranda at an office job, her mom setting Miranda up with some guy Miranda wouldn’t like, and then giving her mom a grandchild.
The sadness on her face continued to percolate and tears almost began to well up as she was thinking what the new year might bring.
Suddenly she thought of her time standing in line with Ben. “Do you think that guy really meant it, going to France?”, she wondered. Then, in Miranda’s head, came the realization, “I’ve never been anywhere.”
Suddenly it was as if a spirit had taken over. She logged into her bank account with no thought about internet security in the coffee shop, looked at her bank balance, and thought, “How does a hostel work?”
She searched, “Hostel in Paris.” Her fingers scrolled as if searching for a buried treasure, selecting a few options, and she made mental notes of ratings and prices.
With five tabs of hostels open, a new browser window was opened, and Miranda’s fingers flew across the keyboard, “cheap flights to Paris.”
For the first time since she was six years old, Miranda felt alive.
More tabs were opened as different flight options came on the screen. She saved them all, jumping back and forth until she found what seemed like the perfect choice.
With complete shock and excitement, Miranda found a flight just after Christmas, and there, staring at her on the screen, was one check box labeled “One way,” and the other labeled “Round trip.”
She paused for a moment as if the rest of her life depended on this one decision. She closed her eyes, scrolled through her life up until this instance, smiled, and selected “One way.”
The spirit still had a hold of Miranda as she went through the payment screens without thought, bounced back to one of the hostel tabs she had open, and booked the room for 90 days.
As the confirmation emails caused her phone to vibrate, Miranda breathed in the air like it was full of life. For a slight moment she had a sense of dread, wondering how she would tell her mom and dad what she had just done, but that quickly dissipated.
A sense of peace came to Miranda’s face. “I’m going to France. Paris, France.”