Dear Rosa:
Countless times, I've planned to write to you once more.  And just as many times, I've convinced myself not to.
"There's too much to say.  Too much I don't know how to explain.  Where do I begin?"

You see, God's been flipping tables on me a lot in the last, well, year and a half.  Since January of 2015, there have been so many things that I've been convicted of, moved to change, and then received a very clear message: "stop."  And so I have.  I've stopped, reassessed, and waited.

Sometimes that waiting gets tiring.
Sometimes I wish that I could have a life like hers, or hers, or his, plugging away at work, just doing the everyday tasks, with no curveballs thrown in.
Sometimes I forget that there's a Divine Plan so much bigger than my own.

About 9 months ago now, I packed up my things and moved to a seminary outside Chicago.  I was going to study the Liturgy to become a Liturgist, and I was going to experience this adventure of living as the solitary woman on a campus full of 220 men discerning the priesthood.  I settled in and I learned a lot, but it was mostly personal growth.  I wrote papers and read encyclicals, yes, but I also prayed, questioned, pleaded, and sought.  And I gradually came to realize that I was sent there not to complete 2 years of a master's degree, but instead to complete an accelerated course in listening, trusting, and praying.  

That realization was a difficult one.  I'd taken a leap of faith in moving, and once more I had to take a leap of faith as I left, rather suddenly, in the middle of the semester, with no credits to my name and no job to head home to.  Somehow, as I packed and said my goodbyes to the friends I'd made, I found an abundance of peace in the knowledge that the Lord was leading me to something better than I ever could have planned for myself.

Do I regret going?  Not for a second.  Do I wish it had happened another way?  Not really.  Does it seem like a waste?
​Sometimes, yes.

It's challenging to wrap my mind around the fact that it took such a large change to uproot my convictions of what my "life plan" would look like.  It's difficult to acknowledge to myself and those I encounter that yes, I did indeed drop out of grad school.  It's humbling to know that the Lord knew such a wake up call would be necessary in order to reach my stubborn heart.

Life hasn't slowed down a bit since I left Chicago last October.  I still wonder how God expects me to get it all done.  And sometimes, it feels like I'm drowning a little bit.  But then I remind myself that if I can move to a strange city with no friends and begin a program at a school with only men, I can probably take on a stressful day at work.

So what am I up to now, Rosa?  I'm reading books, writing letters, and KonMari-ing my sock drawer.  I'm traveling for weddings and pilgrimages, editing textbooks, and learning how to pay utility bills.  I'm working at a parish, learning how to trust God even more through both the minutiae and the ground-shaking changes.

​But above all, I'm allowing my heart to grow and shift and change for the next thing that the Lord places in my path, whatever and whenever that may be.
Vivi d'Amore,
​Allison

It's been 5 weeks.  5 weeks since I drove across 5 states and moved into a little room in a seminary.  Since getting here, I've taken copious amounts of notes, committed to 3 jobs, made friends, and learned the area.  Now I'm a third of the way done with my first semester, and that's super difficult to believe.

My classes are going well so far.  I'm being pushed to think about things differently and to expand my views.  It still feels a bit funny to only be taking 4 classes for 10 credits... I'm certainly not complaining, but it is taking some getting used to.  I have a midterm exam coming up this week, so I suppose that will be the first test of how things are actually going.  Pray for me!  It'll be a hard one!

Yes.  3 jobs.  Each one fell into my lap naturally and plays to my talents.  I'm using different skills in each of them, so I'm never bored.  And the schedules all work out perfectly, so I'm working about 20 hours a week; I'm used to that schedule from my senior year at Franciscan.

One of the best parts of living on campus is getting to know the people here.  My classmates are wonderful and it's been great to get to know them, and the fact that I make food hasn't hurt, either :)  We all have different backgrounds and interests, and each bring a different view to the forefront.  I love being able to have discussions in class that carry over into our lunch and dinner conversations.  Concepts easily flow into discussion which then gets put into practice through the Masses and times of prayer we have together each day.  It's a fluid way of life, making work, study, and prayer grow in and through the others.

And the area.  Oh, the area.  Illinois is a different world than Virginia and Ohio.  (obviously.  I wasn't really expecting it to be the same.)  But it's been fun and a little frustrating to have to learn a whole new area.  My first few days were spent driving aimlessly around the surrounding towns and trying to make my way back to campus without a GPS.  I failed more times than I'd like to admit, but I have finally learned where things are.  I'm still confused by the 3 Targets and 38 Starbucks and 57 Dunkin Donuts, but at least I know they exist.  I think I've found a parish to join, and I have a library card (cue library card song), so I can't really ask for more than that!  The only thing left is to find a young adult group, but I'm fairly positive that as fall hits us, groups will become more active.

[sidenote: Illinois likes a lot of one-way parking lots.  They throw me off every single time.]
[sidenote 2: It was über complicated to get a library card, and after all the trouble, I had to register separately at each library I want to use!  I now have a great appreciation for my local Virginia library system... it's so easy!]

All in all, its been a good start to my time here.  This upcoming week, I'm looking forward to fall break, during which I'll visit with good friends, see my family, and even write a 15-page paper.  It will be nice to get away for a bit, but it'll be just as nice to have a beautiful campus to come back to.

Dear Rosa,
I took my usual walk this evening.  I’ve found that it brings rhythm and regularity and peace and calm to my otherwise topsy-turvy, thrown-everywhere days.  Tonight, everything within me told me not to take a walk, that I should stay inside and do homework instead.  But I fought those thoughts and ventured outside, clutching my rosary as per usual.

I’ve prayed more rosaries in the last week than I have in the last three months.  I’ve never been a rosary girl.  I’ll be the first to admit that needs to change, but you don’t just get ‘into’ the rosary overnight.  But even though I still haven’t learned to love it, I’ve learned that I *need* it.  I need the familiarity.  I need the feeling of the beads slipping through my fingers.  I need to make my deepest petitions known to someone who understands the cry of the heart.

The air was still stuffy as I made my way through the garden towards the dock.  Night one of being here I staked out ‘my spot’, right on the water, as far out into the lake as you can get while still being on solid ground.  And as I settled myself against a pillar to pray decade two, I closed my eyes to the darkness.  Not just the darkness of the fading foggy skies, but the swirling questions that batter against the weary shutters of my mind.  Heart-deep questions which threaten to beat me into submission.

My rosary continued its round about my hands and eventually, I looked up again.  The skies were darker.  The questions remained.  But there was a calm amidst the storm which hadn’t been present moments before.

Sara Bareilles calls it like it is:

But here’s the kicker: on that horizon is a beautiful sunset and new places to be discovered.  And in this time of exploration and finding new places, you’ll also find yourself.  

I think everyone needs to be an island for a bit.  It’s this time of self-discovery which forms us and makes us who we are meant to be.  It’s terrifying to stand on our own two feet and not know where to turn, but its those steps that follow that determine our trajectory, the strokes in the water that aim us towards the mainland.

And if an evening walk can lock these lessons in and make the horizon approach more rapidly, so be it.

Vivi d'Amore,
Allison

Dear Rosa,

Just wanted to jot off a quick note before I dive into homework for the day.  I thought you may be interested in some "statistics" from the week!

Number of Classes: 4
Days I have Classes: 2 (Wednesday and Thursday)
Total Number of Classmates: 6
(Average) Ratio of Priests to Laity at Mass: 6 to 5
Ratio of Male to Female Professors: 2 to 2
Ratio of Ordained to Lay Professors: 2 to 2
Pages of Notes Taken: 16
Number of Times I've Slept Past 7:30 Since Arriving: 0
Number of Masses Attended in 6 Days: 6
Number of Hilarious Dinner Conversations: 2
Number of Dinners involving discussion of Philosophy: 4
Number of Times I've Questioned Being Here: 1
Number of Times I've Been Incredibly Grateful for Being Here: too many to count

Pray for me!  Today and tomorrow are full of homework and reading.
Vivi d'Amore,
Allison

This summer, I took up yoga.

Now, before you get all nervous about my eternal soul, I'll assure you that it's not just any weird, new-age-y, kinda hipster yoga.
That's the thing: it's not just any yoga.
It's P90X yoga, make-you-sweat-and-question-life-choices yoga.  These instructors don't care about whatever spiritual lessons you can learn from exercise, as those in the East might propose.  No, they essentially just want to get ripped.

Let me assure you that my goal wasn't "to get ripped".  Actually, my goal was much simpler and more pathetic: I'll do this, I told myself, because it has been suggested to me by someone I trust, and I have no reason not to.

And so I found myself collapsed on the floor of my rented apartment in the middle of July, sweat beading on my forehead and tears running down my face, questioning why something as seemingly easy as holding the Warrior I pose for 15 seconds was actually this difficult.

I fell in love with yoga that night.  I was drawn to the simple challenge of it.  I wanted to excel at it, to make it my own, to become stronger, and  I slowly improved.  I learned to accept the fact that I couldn't do these crazy difficult moves yet, and as I practiced, and sweated, and practiced some more, I had a realization: I could use this lesson of patience in the rest of my life.

--

Patience.
It's a rather difficult thing, especially when applied to ourselves.  I tend to expect perfection of myself, immediately, even while granting a time of grace and learning to others.

--

Right now I'm in that super fun position of being in a new place, meeting 225 new people.  And with the meet-and-greets at dinnertime comes the inevitable question: "Oh, what are you planning to do after you finish here?"

It's been hard for me to accept that I don't know, and even harder to admit that to others.  But last night, as I told Seminarian 1 sitting to my right that I had taken an unexpected leap of faith in coming here, he smiled and laughed softly.  I prepared myself for mockery, confusion, anything, but instead, I received understanding.  

"Ah," he commented to Seminarian 2.  "We know what leaps of faith look like, don't we?"  And turning back to me, he said, "I took one myself in coming here.  But it's been wonderful, and I'm sure it'll be the same for you."

The Lord rewards our patience, our faithfulness.  For me, He reminds me of that by handing me a job before I asked for one.  He sends me Seminarian 1 at dinner to show compassion for following God's will.
And now He turns and says to me, "Love is patient and kind.  Will you love yourself through virtue?"

Dear Rosa,

It's been a little while since we last talked.  Sorry about that!  I know you heard that I was going back to school this fall - your text indicated that you were surprised.  Well, I am too!

I think the last time we spoke, I was planning to be working as a youth minister after graduation.  As you know, though, God has a funny sense of humor, and sometimes He likes to change things on us.  I'm convinced He does it, for me at least, to make me trust Him more.  Here's the story...

Last fall, I was attending a mandatory workshop for my major entitled "Beauty and Catechesis".  One of our speakers was Dr. Denis McNamara, the assistant director and a professor at the Liturgical Institute.  My interest was peaked because 1) I do a lot with liturgy and 2) I had no idea there was a whole school for Liturgy!  Who knew?  He started with leading us in a chant of morning prayer, then gave an incredible lecture about architecture's link to theology.  As the workshop ended for the day, I remember laughing to a friend: "Maybe I should look into that school.  Haha.  Good joke."  She laughed too, but told me to check it out.

So I did.

Two months later, I finally worked up the courage to send them a message through their contact form.  You can imagine my surprise when it was Dr. McNamara who responded!  Two weeks later, a representative from the school came to Franciscan's campus for a grad school fair.  I walked up to the table and introduced myself, to which he said, "Ah! I hear that you've been emailing us."  Oh no, I thought.  He's heard about me.  But we spoke for 25 minutes, at the end of which I decided to apply.

Flash forward to January.  I set up a date to visit.  I submitted an application.  I began a novena to end on my last day of the visit.  I flew to Chicago and was picked up by a chauffeur (that's an awkward story for another time).  I attended classes, went to a birthday party for someone I'd never met, and fell in love with a snow-filled campus.  I stuck out in the cafeteria (heck, on the entire campus!) because I wore skirts and not suits or clerics.
I finished my novena and received the answer I had prayed for.
When I received my acceptance letter in the mail, I was overjoyed but not surprised.  Too many doors had opened for it not to work out.  But somehow, I couldn't commit.

There was the question of finances.  Was I willing to get into thousands of dollars of debt?
There was the question of community.  Could I study for two years at a seminary, a primarily male campus, with mostly priests and seminarians to spend time with?
There was the question of distance.  Was moving 12 hours from my family something I could actually do?
There was the question of my future.  You see, in February, I had a very sudden realization that I could never actually be a youth minister.  That youth ministry is not at all what I want to spend my life doing.  That even though I have a passion for young people and for giving them the faith, youth ministry is not the way I'm being called to do that.  What was I going to do with this expensive Master's Degree in Liturgy?

And was this God's will?

Slowly, the questions were answered until there were only two left: What would I do at the end, and Did God want me to do this?  Then I received a crystal clear, undeniable answer: This is what God wants of me.

So yes.  I'm moving to Chicago, to Mundelein Seminary, to attend the Liturgical Institute for the next two years.  I hope you come to visit me there!  It's gonna be a crazy adventure, and I'm not quite sure what to expect yet, but I've learned to trust that God will show me in His own timing.

Oh, and no, I still don't know what I'll be doing when I finish.  I'm choosing to believe that I'll find out when I'm supposed to know.  Pray for me!

I'll write again soon!
Vivi d'Amore,
-Allison

This post is part of an ongoing series called Letters to Rosa.  Check out the introduction here and the catalogue of posts here.  Let me know what else you'd like to read about!

This time last year, my expectation was that I'd be entering the scary world of the workforce after graduation.  But February 2015 rolled around and brought with it revelations and changes.  The biggest one of those changes was that instead of working, I'd be attending graduate school immediately following senior year.

For my Protestant friends, that may not seem earth-shattering.  But in the Catholic world, typically only those men actively discerning priesthood go to seminary.  Not the laity, and not women (who cannot become priests)!
Now, let me clarify something.  I'm not exactly going to the seminary for school.  But my grad school is located within the seminary campus, and we share a dining hall, classrooms, running trails,  chapel, etc.  So essentially, I'm heading to the seminary.  There is a possibility of there being a few other women there, but I won't know until I show up.

This brings me to "Letters to Rosa".
Because of the uniqueness of my situation (woman at a seminary = rare), many of my friends have told me that they want to hear about my life there.  So I'm starting a blog series entitled Letters to Rosa.

The Name
This is a little bit complicated, but well worth explaining.  In college, I was part of a women's group called a "household".  It's a faith-based group of women who all commit to living in a certain manner, and who all have a similar style of living out our faith life.  My household was called Rosa Mystica, named after a title of Our Lady.  Among other things, we commit ourselves to praying and sacrificing for priests, seminarians, and religious.  My household sisters find my grad school situation beautifully ironic, as vocations to the priesthood are close to my heart.

Therefore, Letters to Rosa: a series of letters to you about my life "at the seminary", named after my beautiful household full of women who pray earnestly for priests and religious.

My plan is to continue this little series throughout my two years there.  I would love to write what you want to hear about - what questions do you have for me?

{Keep an eye out for an upcoming post entitled Letters to Rosa: You're Going Where??}

The end has come once again, and again I am thinking "I'm so done."

I have loved these last 12 months of leadership.  I enjoy working behind the scenes and assisting with so many events.  But I am ready to move on.  While I am admittedly still a bit bitter over the "degree mishap" from May, I'm also just ready for the next step.  It's exciting to think about all the possibilities that await me, and those can't begin until I put my undergraduate life behind me.    

The morning that I left Franciscan University, I was talking with one of my friends as I cleared my desk at work.  He asked how I was doing with leaving, and I took a deep breath before answering.
"You know, it's time.  It's been a fantastic year, but I can see that my time here is done; it's bittersweet, but I'm content with leaving.  God is good."

Indeed, our God is very good.

It's been quite a while, folks.  2 1/2 months, to be exact.  I never planned to take a blogging sabbatical, but as it turns out, it's just what I needed.
I wish I could begin to reiterate all that's happened since early May, but there's a lot.  I finished undergraduate finals.  I wrote a graduate level paper.  I graduated from college.  I moved back home and organized my college life into my post-college life.  I get to experience the horrors and frustrations of buying insurance.  Then, 3 weeks after moving home, I moved back to Franciscan University to work for the summer.  

For the first time, I'm living with housemates in our own little apartment, making meals in our own little kitchen and yes, even cleaning our own (tiny) bathroom.  We all happen to work together, so our schedules coincide.  Thankfully, we get along well and have a lot of fun together.

While I'm not transitioning into a "real job", it's still certainly been transition out of college.  My last few weeks of school were, to be honest, miserable, as I dealt with frustrations dealing with my degree.  It got mostly sorted out, but I am just glad to have it behind me.  I have a degree and am done!

And now.  Now I am working for the summer, then moving to Chicago for graduate school!  Yikes.  Help.  Ah.  I don't know how how or why but I'm definitely excited.  It'll be a huge adventure, as I'll be attending a Catholic seminary for the next two years.  God only knows (literally) how it will go and what I'll end up doing, but I can't wait to begin.

In the meantime, I keep leading meetings, making pasta, reading books for fun for the first time in 6 months, and meeting up with friends.  It's a great summer life, even if Sunday afternoons find me taking a nap after a 30-hour weekend.

Right now, I'm just waiting for the next adventure to begin.
And I'm ok with waiting.

The books were calling, but sometimes the heart calls louder.

I have a big exam today.  But some evenings, such as last night, the necessary thing to do is to sit in the open window and watch the transition from sun-kissed to charcoal, as the sky is gradually being painted muted blue and purple, from bright orange and red.