Harvard College Supplemental Essay (Fingers-Crossed)

         I  really believe that dinner should be one of those cathartic experiences in which you just completely inter the emotional stink of the day under ambiguously coalesced layers of peas and potatoes and steak. I really believe that. But like all things, dinner is too an assignment, perhaps sort of a subconscious duty of the body. Dinner reads very much like a responsibility, because in truth it is. It’s this complex and demented temptation of want conflicted with need, and a titillation of macaroni littered with the whispering mockery of the French-cut green beans. Dinner is an absolute quantification of personal will and endurance, and I choose to fight that daily battle by eating everything on my plate separately, because there is some pleasure inherent to knowing that once you absolve the green beans of all the dominating power their presence holds, you can eat macaroni in peace. It is all about order and progress. Sometimes, you just have to power through the broccoli to be reimbursed by the fried okra.

            Eating, while I enjoy it thoroughly, has always been handled like schoolwork; I prefer everything to be precise and orderly. Green beans are those essay questions in a packet about Gothic Art that I don’t really register upon simply flipping through the assignment.

 “Hey, honey I think we’ll have some brisket, with some…uh, macaroni and cheese and green beans, I guess.”

“Oh yeah, ok mom sounds great.”

 And then there’s the gradual recognition of what exactly that task entails, and it easily becomes the bane of some ephemeral and abstract episode in my life. There is so little a chance of really objectively completing those breathable and simple “fill in the blank” questions without the threat of a constant reminder lingering along with the existence of those wrist-breaking essay responses. So like with any assignment, or with any test in which I’m given the option to do so, I work the hardest questions first; I eat those green beans—all of them. Until I am absolutely sure that I have incrementally reduced my stress level even by a minute modicum of measure, I will not touch that creamy, cheesy “fill in the blank” macaroni. When I have successfully completed those essay questions, I’ll flip back to them every now and then, just to assure myself that visible and tangible progress has been made. There is nothing more relieving than indulging in the first bite of macaroni and first looking to the vacant half of the plate, that deserted porcelain throne where those green beans used to be, and knowing that in some small way, I’ve progressed with my life. One more day, one more serving of green beans, one last essay question about flying buttresses, one step closer to the freedom to luxuriate in the successes of hard work.

            This is not an issue of the foods marrying each other; I’m fine with inter-nutritional relationships.

“Well why don’t I just buy you a bunch of tiny plates, and you can eat each part of the meal on a separate tiny plate?”

“No, mom, because then the table would be cluttered with a bunch of empty, tiny plates. I need the reassurance of empty plates.”

I just think that the assignment of eating dinner runs like clockwork for me when I have the privilege to look back at the empty half of the plate and understand that progress has undeniably been made, and that there is nothing but good things to come. I eat the green beans, the green beans are good for me, and they are one of life’s unavoidable responsibilities. During my freshman year in high school my biology teacher speculated, “Are you one of those people that eats every part of your salad separately?” Yes, I am. I would have to assume that that kind of intimate information is easily unearthed by my learning style, if nothing else. The plate is a mission; it is a finite and self-sustaining unit. I have to devour those responsibilities, those needs and those insurmountable obstacles. I understand that dinner, that school, and that life contains complex relationships between trials, tribulations, successes and rewards. If I ate macaroni every day I would make myself sick, it’s only that progress and the absence of the glaring green beans that makes the rest of the meal taste so nice. Reward is the absolute consequence of taking advantage of the things that I love and tolerating the things that I don’t. And I will admire that simple success--until dinnertime tomorrow.