Chili dogs, tomorrow and other things not to be scared of

What if I told you that I was scared? And what if I told you that I was scared of too many things to name but that I would try my best to name a few? Elevators (though slightly less than usual as of late). Ingrown toenails. Airplane bathrooms (for a different reason than elevators, I swear I’m not claustrophobic). Anesthesia. The future. Meat on a bone. Stocks. The parking lot outside of Branner Hall. Making direct eye contact with birds. Bone density issues and thus, osteoporosis. The list goes on. The thing that I am most scared of, though, is tomorrow. As of tomorrow, I am old. At least one day older than I am today. And boy, is that scary. Truly the scariest.

For some reason, my fear of tomorrow began today. The reason for my fear of tomorrow is because today I realized that this metaphorical tomorrow equates to my last winter quarter at Stanford, although I don’t want to admit that to myself. It marks my transition into adulthood. As of now, “real adults” are those who grocery shop on scheduled days and subscribe to print magazines and eat dates. I am not quite there yet. But soon I will be, because of this tomorrow business. Don’t get me wrong, here. While I’m rather excited for tomorrow, it makes the rest of everything else in the world seem so real and so tangible and so close. All of a sudden, I am real and tangible and close, too. I was distant before. Or at least distant enough that I was not scared of tomorrow, just perhaps a little anxious.

Because of the impending weight of tomorrow, I very recently laid face down on the floor and cried. I don’t know for how long, perhaps thirty minutes or so. But for thirty minutes or so, it felt like the weight of the world was stomping on my back as though it were trying to crack me into thousands of jagged jigsaw pieces. And there was nothing that I could possibly do to make it stop. I thought of dachshunds in sweaters and breakfast for dinner and hugs from my Mom and everything else in the world that isn’t scary. But still, I was petrified.

I couldn’t help but lay face down on the floor and cry and think about the fact that I am getting older. Each morning that I wake up to the soft California light is another morning that I am alive and another morning that I am older. How does one cope with that? Where does one go from here? How does one ensure that their frozen hotdogs don’t burst in the microwave?

While I don’t have the answers to these existential questions, I do know that the last of those questions makes me think about one of my not-so-secret loves in this world — the chili dog. Yes, I said it. I could go on for hours about what they mean to me, but that might not be so interesting. Instead, I will tell you about how I started loving them, why I want one right now and what they possibly have to do with my existential crisis.

For the majority of my life, I have over-indulged in the crisp natural-casing hotdogs from Kerby’s Koney Island in Novi, Mich. Many people think that Kerby’s is overrated. But I am not one of those people. To a New Jerseyian like me, Kerby’s is the epitome of a fantastic, mouth-watering meal that you crave so much. And there is truly nothing better than the first bite of a meal that you crave so much. Sadly though, I was not able to experience my first chili dog bite until I was in eighth grade. It was at that point that I had worked up the courage to take a bite. And while I wish that I had worked up the courage earlier, I am ever-so glad that I did at all because they absolutely changed the course of my life.

For one, chili dogs have become one of my life staples, one of the binds that secure the pages to the spine of my existence. (Is that too much?)

Let’s just say that chili dogs have a magical way of soothing me. They are a comfort food that can take me out of the stacks of Green Library and instead bring me back to the sultry summer evenings spent on the leather seats of my grandfather’s pontoon boat. Those evenings are some of the best, most stress-free evenings that one could imagine. As I’ve spent nearly every summer at the lake with my grandparents, I’ve grown accustomed to both the mess and the delight of chili dogs. We often cooked them for lunch and dinner, as they don’t require much time or artistry. While this cuisine may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I’m sure that everyone reading this has a comfort food that they, too, crave during finals week, peak homesickness and also moments of complete existential dread. In my case, it is when I notice myself hunched over my laptop with bloodshot eyes and a yearning for fries from TAP that I close my eyes, tilt my head back and smile at the thought of canned chili smeared across microwaved hotdogs.

And as I write this slightly vulnerable piece about my biggest fears and getting older and making big life decisions and having far too many thoughts, I can’t help but desire a chili dog and a pontoon boat and inner peace. Then again, if I were eating a chili dog on a pontoon boat on a lake at this very moment in time instead of on the floor of my dorm room, I think that I’d still be extremely scared and extraordinarily uneasy and full of too many thoughts. I’d probably still be writing this same jumble right now too. I’m a pretty predictable person. A creature of habit, one might say. Funny how that works. And also funny how everything works. And also even funnier how everything eventually works out. So maybe that’s a good way to end this rambling that I have going on here. Everything will work out because it has to. If it doesn’t work out how you wanted it to, that just means that it hasn’t worked itself up just yet. So, with this said, even if we are scared, stressed about finals, full of too many thoughts to count, or even sitting on the floor in the dark dreaming about canned chili, remember that everything will be OK because it has to be. Sometimes, all it takes is closing your eyes to think about microwaveable meat sticks to make everything a little bit easier to tend with.

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