MEET CAT

Perhaps the most influential person in the “college chapter” of my life has been a girl named Catherine Cline. Cat grew up a few minutes down the road from me in suburban Minnesota, but our lives didn’t cross paths until we both made the decision to attend a seemingly random university in St. Louis, Missouri.

I’ll never forget the first time we were supposed to meet. It was February of senior year and we had decided to meet up for coffee to talk and get to know each other.

I was way too nervous to meet Cat. I wanted her to like me because I thought she would be the most convenient option for a freshman year roommate. I debated back and forth for days in my head about whether I should hug her or give her a handshake or simply do nothing when we first met. I wanted to seem friendly - but not too friendly. I wanted to come off as cool - but not like I was trying hard to be cool. These were the thoughts filling my mind as I pulled up to our local coffee shop on that chilly winter morning. I went in, ordered my usual drink, sat at a table and waited for Cat to show up.

I waited.

And waited.

And then I waited some more.

Then I shot her a text asking if she was on her way.

A few more minutes passed and soon I realized I had been stood up by my first and only potential college roommate.

I called up my high school friends, who happened to be eating breakfast at a place down the road. I ashamedly walked down the street to deliver the news of my embarrassing morning. They laughed their asses off, knowing how much I had been anticipating and planning this meeting. “Hey, at least now you don’t have to think about the handshake or hug dilemma.” I laughed along with them as I ordered my usual egg scrambler and cup of coffee with two creamers.

About 20 minutes into my meal, my phone rang. It was Cat. Nervously, I answered the phone. Turns out Cat had been suffering from terrible vertigo and completely forgot about our meeting. We rescheduled for the following weekend. I hung up the phone.

“Vertigo?” I said to my friends over my scrambled eggs. “Sounds fake to me.”

The following week, I pulled up to the same local coffee shop and ordered my same drink. I headed to the same table, and hoped for the best. Luckily, this time Cat decided to show. I boldly went for the hug, and the tone was set from there. We chatted for hours, with hardly any awkward pauses between us. I decided that I’d give Cat her chance and that maybe - just maybe - we could room together at college.

Spoiler alert: we did. And it was awesome.

Now, as juniors in college, we are roommates again. Cat has seen me through some of my toughest days. She has been my shoulder to cry on, in the most literal sense. She has inspired me by her unwavering faith in a good and righteous God. She has rejoiced in parts of me that I didn’t know were worth rejoicing in, and she has provided one of the most unwavering and valuable friendships in my life. She makes me laugh everyday and I am grateful and humbled to call her one of my best friends.

I got the chance to sit down and interview Cat for my first interview blog post. Long chats between the two of us are commonplace, but it was interesting to format our conversation in this way. My first question to her, as someone that I look up to, was what her greatest piece of advice for others is. She thought about it for a minute, and finally came to the conclusion that her greatest piece of advice would be to not expect life to be perfect. When Cat was a senior in high school, she was involved in many things. She danced, she volunteered, she dedicated hours and hours to her studies, and she had a hard time saying no to opportunities that presented themselves to her. She stretched herself thin and committed herself to countless activities. All that changed, however, when she suffered a terrible injury. Cat was hit by a foul ball at a Twins baseball game which resulted in a lacerated spleen. A unique injury, to say the least, caused her to put her life on pause. A slow and painful recovery taught her an important lesson - life doesn’t always work out the way we want it to. It’s not predictable. And that’s okay. There are still blessings to be found in changed plans. Cat says that now when things don’t go the way she expected them to, she gets excited. “I feel like it’s God’s way of just being like, okay Catherine, I’ve got it. Trust me.” We talked about how important this lesson has become, especially in this past year. Living through a pandemic and all of it’s uncertainty has forced everyone to be okay with the unpredictability of life. Cat was just ahead of the game.

Next, I asked Cat what her greatest joy in life is at this current moment. Although I live with Cat and witness her day to day life, I was interested to hear how she would answer this question. Her eyes got really big as she started to describe what a joy it is to truly have her own life. “My people here are finally solidified, and I’m really getting to know the city, and I’m studying what I love. I get to live with my best friend and it’s so fun getting to see everything that I’ve wanted for so long finally come into fruition.”

Cat and I talked about how proud we feel of the life we have created here at SLU. Neither of us knew anyone coming here two years ago, and now we feel as though the people around us are family. Cat is a dietetics major on the culinary track. She is passionate about food, and she is currently taking classes like Baking and Meat Analysis where she actually gets to cook and bake for her grades. She spoke about how amazing it is to get to do what she loves everyday. Our lives are becoming more and more solidified by the day, and yet we still have so much momentum. There are still so many abstract unknowns, and yet we are slowly creating lives that we’re proud of. I feel so lucky to be able to watch Cat in this season of her life. Her passion for doing what she loves is truly inspiring, and I can’t wait to keep rooting for her as she continues to become the person that she’s meant to be.

Finally, I asked Cat if there are any lessons that she has learned from our friendship. I have learned a lot by knowing her and being her friend, so I was interested to hear if she felt the same way. “Oh my god, Molly, I need a whole day to think about this question,” she laughed. After a long time (like, seriously, a long time), she came up with two lessons that she feels she’s learned in this chapter of our friendship.

Lesson 1: the power of listening. Cat said that one of her favorite memories in our friendship took place in the first few weeks of our freshman year. We were just starting to get to know each other and we were alone in our dorm with no plans for the night. I sat on our beanbag and Cat sat on our futon and we just talked. For hours. “I don’t think I’d ever met someone that I could talk to that easily that fast. It was such an easy flow.” We laughed because the scenario of us chatting for hours has taken place many times through the years, in various settings and in varying contexts. I also brought up how rare it is to find someone that’s willing to fully listen to your stories - no matter how good, bad or repetitive they might be.

The second lesson Cat claims to have learned through our friendship is that it’s okay to let yourself evolve. “I’ve always been a person who has a very set identity of who I’m supposed to be in my mind, and through our friendship I’ve learned that it’s okay to let myself break out of that box.” Cat and I have definitely stretched each other in different ways. Cat, who is quite possibly the most calculated and thoughtful person I have met, occasionally will submit to my spontaneous nature. Whether it be random camping trips or random shopping trips, I find that I can sometimes convince her to engage in activities that haven’t been penciled into her planner for weeks in advance. For myself, Cat has taught me many life skills. Apparently I’m the only 20 year old woman in the world without a skin care routine (??) which Cat has kindly enlightened me about. She also taught me how to properly care for my kitchen utensils and how to get even the most stubborn of stains out of my clothes. Basically every adult skill I’ve learned since coming to college has been a direct result of my friendship with Cat.

I am grateful for the opportunity to know Catherine Cline. Our lives crossed paths at the perfect moment in time, and this season of my life would be incomplete and unfulfilled without her. I’m glad that we can witness and write the stories of our lives together. I think back about that February day at our local coffee shop two years ago, and I’m convinced that my decision to hug her (not handshake her) is the reason that our friendship is what it is today.