I guess I should open by saying I’m sorry — I really didn’t mean to do it. It’s me again, Joseph Oldsboy, and I done messed up pretty bad last week. 

You see, I’m always a regular attendee at swing; you can usually find me leaning against a pillar watching the dances and screwing my courage to the sticking point. I love swing — it’s the highlight of my week. 

But this last week, things were… different, somehow. To begin with, I was under an immense amount of stress. I’d only gotten seven and a half hours of sleep the night before, as opposed to my regular eight, and I had a two-page Western Heritage paper that I’d been slaving over for three weeks due at 5 p.m. 

To put it lightly, I was swamped. 

So after I got out of class, I immediately got busy on my paper — only occasionally texting an Olds girl I’d happened to have lunch with the day before (as good friends in the Lord, of course). It was nerve-wracking — as I’m sure you all know, the pressure of having to write papers at this college is immense. 

I was focused like a hawk. A dark, brooding hawk — one with razor-keen focusing abilities and amazing hair, not to carry the metaphor too far. But I was so razor-keen and focused that before I knew it, it was already 8:30 p.m., and I’d missed the first half-hour of the lesson at swing.

I was crushed — dismayed — distraught — undone. My dreams of marital bliss flashed before my eyes faster than a Mac boy diving headfirst through a McIntyre window at 2 a.m.

Without those precious minutes of swing lesson, I just knew that I’d fall behind in my swing repertoire, which would lead me to fall progressively farther behind my peers who would learn cool tricks and aerials while I’d get stuck doing the Pretzel, all because of a rotten Western Heritage paper. I’d end up sitting on the sidelines talking to Whitleyites while my more dancingly-adept friends swung — swang? swingèd? swanged? — the night away with all the Olds girls on campus. 

“What am I to do?” I cried out in despair. “Who will free me from this body of swing dancing ineptitude?” 

And in the still, still silence of that lonely 8:35 p.m. night, a thought came to me. Could it be that I’m actually meant for the monastery?

After fasting for a minute or two and praying for discernment, I acted at once but with dignity, texting all of my just-good-friends-in-the-Lord in Olds and McIntyre to inform them of my decision (lest any of them should continue to have mixed messages from when I danced with them all last time). A define-the-relationship text, if you will. 

I thought about trying to make it to the last few hours of swing, but I knew it wouldn’t be worth it. Once a man’s face is set towards Jerusalem, it ill-behooves him to swing by Atlantic City. I mortified my yearnings for swing and googled “monasteries near me.”

This, then, is my history, recorded for the edification of my brethren and sisteren. I’ve started attending swing again, but now I sit on the sidelines, expounding the joys of monasticism to the Whitley congregation and extolling my joyful yet weighty discernment process to an adoring Olds crowd, for whom I have but the most brotherly of affections. 

Yes, I am happy, forgiven, and free. Who would have known missing swing could ever have led to such bliss? 

Yours very truly,

Brother Joseph Oldsboy of Olds

 

Joseph Oldsboy is a freshman. He hopes to graduate with a double-major in Aristotelian Philosophy and Monastic Studies  as well as a double-ex in Mac and Olds. 

 

This piece was edited by Zack Chen.