This Pondering Heart

I was a little creeped out when I first opened Bumble. It feels almost invasive to know someone is out there looking at pictures of me underscored by wimpy responses to “mountains or beach” or “3 truths and a lie.” I just don’t like to think that hundreds of dudes are swiping left because the light hits my face in an unagreeable way in three out of five pictures or that I’m a hard pass because I toggled seeking “relationship” instead of “something casual.” I promised myself (one of my 25 goals) I’d dive into the world of online dating, get on an app or two, try a website, really “put myself out there.” What they don’t tell you is how opposite-Melissa Fitzpatrick the entire process would be (there should be a warning in bright red letters). There’s no fine print explaining how app-dating could leave you feeling hollow and even more single than before you created a profile and unabashedly picked out pictures depicting who you are (me cheesily grinning with my snowman ice crea...

Helena Therese Petlick. I wanted to know her the second she opened her mouth proclaiming her celebrity crush was John Krasinski. Caught in her allure (she has this effect on practically everyone she meets), I was spellbound and determined to make myself her very best friend. Lucky for me she was also auditioning for marching band (#nerdalert) and just so happened to live kiddy corner to my dorm room (this was absolutely the Holy Spirit at work). After actively seeking her out, bonding over being introverts (cough-being afraid of alcohol-cough), and unknowingly making a fool of myself more than once (I swear I know who Jane Austen is), she caved and agreed to be a pal. And so, we became NellMel. We had totally different social groups. We studied opposite things (especially that first semester). We ate almost every meal together. We hugged it out through our first breakups (which I’m now realizing happened very close together). We even followed through on our promise and too...

My sister, my first role model, my very best friend married her favorite person on a below freezing day under the twinkly lights of Iowa. It was an honor standing right beside her through it all (ensue a wave of tears). ----------------- Eight months of planning. Tick . It starts off small with links to venues and dates and all the exciting possibilities. Stretches of time go dark, only to be matched with an influx of pictures and questions within one hour to make up for lost time. Extended (most welcome) phone calls are scheduled to strategize, talk out details for the big day. Tock . Before you know it, it’s already here. You’re on a plane headed home with too much luggage (only over-packers check bags), anticipating the interference you’ll have to make so the bride-to-be isn’t (as) stressed. Tick . There’s barely any time to focus on the holiday (just a peek: Christmas Eve Mass celebrated in the church cry room) and you collectively plow straight through Christmas...

It’s about time I have my quarter life crisis. Oh yes, hello, twenty-five. I’ve lamented to some generous listeners in my life at how this number is hard for me to swallow. “You’re so young,” and “It’s just a number” are the most frequent responses. Still, somehow seven year-old Melissa thought she’d have a lot more figured out by the time she was 25. I should have at least one aspect of life in order, right? (She asks sitting under a heaping pile of laundry as the sixth episode in a row of Gilmore Girls plays on her four year old bug-infested computer and a pot of mac & cheese waits on the stove-top for dinner.) --------------------------- Fitzpatricks haven’t ever been big birthday people. I looked forward to them when I was younger, but even then I’m pretty sure my birthday excitement peaked at seven (only kidding, it probably lasted into my pre-teens). It’s something I now tolerate because it simply has to happen. So you can imagine how I was taken aback with one o...

Writing letters is my jam. I studied the - as some would say - dying art for my final undergrad comprehensive senior project ( The Greeting Card’s Survival in a Digital World, it was a fun topic). I’m a devoted letter writer and proudly (and consistently) have at least 3 people I correspond with via snail mail. I get giddy every time I open my 7 inch mailbox and find my name scrawled on a well-traveled envelope (on rough days you may even find me cracking a grin at junk mail). And I always, always have cardstock or some sort of stationary coupled with colorful envelopes on hand. There’s something about a letter; holding a piece of paper that someone else miles away held only days before, picturing how your penpal leaned over their kitchen counter in thought as their arm flew across the page and thoughts formulated in ink. Letters take time, sincere effort and carry a certain nostalgic only-seen-in-movies-and-books kind of charm. ---- One of my love languages is words o...

It’s been a heavy fall. This could be a side effect of the shifting seasons as winter looms in an all encompassing blanket of black (everything seems to be a shade darker this year) that encourages early evenings of hibernation. The spiritual drought I’m in likely has something to do with it too, as I go through the motions not feeling the warm Presence I'm used to. It’s probably partly a result of the jarring embrace of frosty air so cold it leaves a lonely, sharp ache that a boiling cup of tea can’t even thaw. These symptoms of a looming winter and broken exhaustion have encouraged darkness to easily seep into the crevices of my favorite season. ------ Head tilted to the side, eyes focused in little slits, nose scrunched ever-so-slightly, and a quick “uh-huh” with a nod up and down. I know this look well. I was the recipient of this look nine times out of ten as I word vomited an overcompensated explanation to why I wasn’t making the trek home for the long holiday...

I finished a marathon. 26.2 miles of running. It was hard (understatement of the year). But the journey, the people who got me through (and to t he starting line in the first place) made it more than just a run. ---- When my childhood bestie asked me to do a marathon with her, without hesitation I said yes. For those of you who don’t know Maria Timm, I’ll just say she’s persistent. She’s been asking me to run 26.2 (fun) miles with her for a couple of years. She talked me into 13.1, but I was convinced I’d never run the full sha-bang. But for some reason this time when she asked, I easily agreed. I like to believe it was God’s way of taking care of future me. His way of nudging and proving that, “with Him, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). I couldn’t yet know the deep hurt, the gnawing ache, the consuming restlessness I would feel as my sunshiny summer came to a jolting hault. But He did. He knew how meaningful this ra...