Stephanie Morrill

Unexpected and much-needed fan mail

14 September 2009

So one of the semi-awkward moments in my life has always been when people asked, “So where did you go to college?” and I get to do the whole, “Oh, I actually didn’t go anywhere.” Depending on the relationship I either tack on, “I stayed in Kansas City and worked instead,” or I also go through a spiel about not being able to find the right school. Since getting published, this conversation has become remarkably less embarrassing. I have proof that I wasn’t partying away the last eight years and that the college degree wasn’t absolutely necessary for me.

When I made the decision to forego college—although saying that makes it sound like it was one decision rather than several spread over varying semesters, but anyway—I received a mix bag of reactions. Some were silently displeased. Others were quite verbal. Many were supportive, but in that, “Okay, if that’s what you really think is best…” kind of way. And I understood, because me not going to college was a huge surprise even to me. I had been groomed for college. Growing up, the college talk always went like this in my house, “When you go away to college…” It was a given that I would go somewhere. And then I didn’t. I remember the August/September when all my friends scattered to their various schools, and I felt like everybody else was surging into adulthood, and I was still living in inbetween-ville.

And when I say all my friends, I mean all my friends. Because I didn’t go to a regular high school, I went to Notre Dame de Sion College Preparatory School for Girls. (Affectionately called Sion because the full name’s a mouthful.) It was a school designed to get me into college. It’s in the freaking title. I spent senior year watching my friends fall in love with their future schools while I kept looking at brochures and feeling more and more scared.

Fear is a lousy excuse to not do something, though it’s worked out fine for me. I wouldn’t trade a single thing in my life, and because of that I can’t bring myself to regret any of the decisions that brought me here. But something in the back of my mind that’s always nagged at me was that I let my school down. (Had my parents acted like paying for a college prep education that didn’t end in college, I’d have felt bad about that too, but they’re fine.) My English teacher and college counselor told me not to worry about it. That’s not exactly my style. I had chalked up Sion’s potential disappointment in me to being one of those things you just have to deal with when you follow God’s plan for your life. Where people don’t really get it, they might never get it, and you just have to tell your ego to be quiet.

And then on Friday night I opened a piece of mail from Sion. They often send notices about fund raisers or events going on at the school. But this was a personal letter from the head of the school saying how she’d seen my article in The Star, that Sion was proud of me, and that she was excited I was coming to speak for Career Day. I was super impressed that she’d addressed it to both Mrs. Stephanie Morrill and that she called me Stevie, my high school nickname.

It’s funny, I didn’t realize how big of a deal it had been to me that I’d let down Sion until Ms. Munninghoff wrote about how proud they were of me. My eyes misted, and I started blubbering to Ben about who-knows-what. I wanted to go put on my uniform and belt out “Vive Sion” for a bit. (I did neither. Instead I wrote a response and stuck it in the mail.)

Happy Monday everyone. Vive Sion.

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