hospitality

                 The hospital. It’s so serious. Everyone there has the same blank smile, the one they hope masks their concern. Nobody says hello in the elevator and the mellow green walls designed to be calming, are not. You look at the ground when walking the halls because you don’t want to intrude on anyone’s privacy….or you’re afraid of what you’ll see.

                I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals. I was six the first time. I had been sick for days; couldn’t really breathe. My mother rubbed Vicks Vapor rub on my chest and propped me up on a mountain of pillows to help me breathe. I coughed incessantly, a dry, tight cough that took all the energy out of me. It was dark out when my mother bundled me up for the drive to the hospital. We sat in the waiting room in hard plastic chairs lined up next to the windows. There were toys in the corner of the room and a pile of picture books but nobody was playing with them.

                Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long. I was so weak and cold but my mother insisted I take my jacket off; I just wanted to feel better. A doctor I didn’t know walked in the room with a bright smile on his face. Him and my mother spoke about me as if I wasn’t sitting in the room but I didn’t have the energy to explain how I was feeling myself. The doctor listened to me breathe, moving his stethoscope around on my back. His smile was gone and a slight frown was in its place. He told my mother he waas concerned about my high fever and the rattling her heard in my chest and would like to get some chest x rays.

                More waiting. For what, I didn’t know. I couldn’t rest. The bed’s lumpy mattress was uncomfortable and it was too high off the ground. I ached.  The lights were bright and too many people were walking by the room talking in hushed voices that weren’t quiet enough.

                Minutes, or hours, or minutes that felt like hours, went by before two men in blue scrubs arrived to take me to my x ray. Symbiotically, they locked the bars on each side of me and wheeled me out of the room. We winded down the corridors and I watched the dark green border whiz by me. The ride is the only thing I remember about my first x ray.

                I was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. It was the first time I heard the word. I was allergic to the penicillin I was prescribed, complicating my recovery. But I did recover and went home with two inhalers and a new bracelet.

                When you spend a lot of time in hospitals you develop a liking for people-watching and you learn a lot about relationships. You see sick wives downplaying their pain to ease the worries of their husband. You wonder why, when life is at stake and everything is exposed, people are more dishonest than ever.

                In 1992 my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was young, only seven and I wasn’t given many details about her illness. She was hospitalized often and I grew accustomed to seeing her in a hospital bed. I was too young to realize the severity of the situation, probably because of my grandmother’s impressive acting chops. Yes, she looked sick. She had tubes hooked up to her arms with clear liquid running through them and her eyes were sagging, her skin sallow. She had lost her hair. But she always smiled for me.  She stayed awake while I read to her and chattered about school. I laid with her in bed and we watched Days of Our Lives, her favorite soap opera. If she was scared, she never showed it. If she was angry, I didn’t know. Each week I painted her nails.

                When she had a double mastectomy she joked about it and showed off her new “ta ta’s.” Her good humor didn’t last long before she landed back in the hospital. This time it was lung cancer.

                Shocked. Another adjective that describes most people in hospitals. Whether you’re a patient or a visitor, you’re probably thinking “Why? How could this happen to me/someone I know? It’s not fair.” It’s never fair but people say it anyways, as if fairness ever factored into the bad genes or bad decisions that led the person to their hospital bed. As if saying it changes anything.

                My grandmother smoked for two years when she was twenty, before she got pregnant with my mother. She told me she gave it up easily, that she never really liked it anyways. Two years.

                She didn’t bounce back as quickly the second time. Her stays at the hospital were longer; she was home less. During the week my mother got out of work at five and we would get in the car and drive to Bangor to visit her in the hospital. We would say hi to the nurses congregated at the main desk. We didn’t need directions to her room and her doctor became a friend whom we all loved. He celebrated with us when she went into remission.

                Our happiness was short-lived, our enthusiasm premature. The dark winter was over and spring leaves covered the trees; flowers bloomed. My grandmother's spring allergies turned into a cold. Her immune system,weak from chemotherapy and radiation, was ravaged by the seemingly minor cold and it quickly escalated to pneumonia.  

                You always think you know what to worry about. You’re scared when somebody tells you they have cancer but shrug it off as a minor concern when someone gets admitted to the hospital for the flu. Most people think appendicitis is no big deal but what they don’t know is that your whole life can change in a day and it’s the things you least expect that will crush you.

                She was admitted to the ICU. Nurses and doctors in the ICU are the most empathetic of all hospital employees. They don’t bother with forced smiles. Instead, their eyes shine with pity and concern. Here, they don’t bother with lies. They don’t sugarcoat situations and they don’t bend the rules.

                I wasn’t allowed to visit her. I was underage. It killed me knowing that I could make her feel better. I wanted to tell her I knew it was going to be okay. I had had pneumonia only three years before and was completely fine.

                That was the last time we went to the hospital to see my grandmother. I was nine.

                I lost faith in medicine. Didn’t understand how someone could beat two forms of cancer and die from a simple virus like pneumonia. The only answer I had was that doctors didn’t know anything.

                Yet, I couldn’t avoid them. My asthma hadn’t gone away and the next winter I became a patient at the lovely Eastern Maine Medical Center when I developed pneumonia. I was petrified, too young to understand the factors that led to my grandmother’s death. I didn’t know about white blood cells and the immune system. I thought I was going to die.

                Every time I got sick there on out I was convinced it was a chronic illness. My knees ached and I was convinced I was arthritic. When I found bruises on my body I knew it was leukemia. Rashes were the worst for me.  A symptom of virtually everything, I would spend nights awake obsessing over what the rash (bug bite) meant. During my yearly physicals I would show my doctor freckles on my body that I had deemed cancerous only to find out they were just freckles.

                Since I knew I was being irrational, I spent a lot of time outside of the doctor’s office, convincing myself nothing was wrong with me. As a result, I avoided the doctor when I should have gone.

                I woke up early on a summer day in 2006, my stomach burning. I couldn’t stand up and cried out; it hurt so bad, I couldn’t help it. I spent the morning keeled over in the bathroom unable to move, the sharp pain stabbing my right side. I tried to drink water, do anything to make me feel better, but nothing worked. I laid back down in the fetal position, willing the pain to go away. Finally, at seven p.m. I couldn’t take it anymore. Terrified, I had my roommate drive me to the hospital where I waited three hours to be seen.

                This time I went into the examining room alone and as I chugged the fluorescent yellow liquid to prepare for my CT scan, I realized how lonely the place full of people really was. As I lay in the capsule, still as I could be, I prayed they would find something wrong with me. I needed an answer to the pain.

                I was preparing for surgery, the valium dripping into my veins. Quick. The surgery had to happen right away. This was pretty serious. So serious I had called my parents; they were in the waiting room. The nurse administering my drugs had a soothing voice and I wasn’t nervous anymore. Maybe it was the drugs or just relief to have the answer I had prayed for.

                My stay was short and sweet. I came out of surgery on schedule and my appendectomy was successfully. They sent me home with a prescription for vicoden and instructions to rest for at least a week.

                The hospital saves lives.  A scary place, you can justify avoiding it almost every single time. Not enough money, no insurance, the pain's not that bad. It’s probably nothing, let’s just wait it out. You’ve done it, I’ve done it. I almost did but something made me go. Fear, our most primitive symptom; it keeps us alive.

numbers

                 Arms behind my back I sucked in, trying to zip the last inch of the strapless cocktail dress. It was the dress I had been looking for; it was perfect. Winter white, its subtle lace details shimmered and the short hem made me look three inches taller. It was the last one and I had to make it fit. I turned to view the back in the mirror and admired the graceful way it fell above my knees. Elated I finally found the one I bought the dress and on my way home stopped at Hannaford to stock up on spinach, veggies, and coconut water.

                The Christmas party was a week away. Seven days to lose the five pounds that prevented the dress from zipping. Five pounds that would drop me from a healthy size four to a hungry size two. Five pounds that would grant me a generous “Samantha, you look nice.” instead of the usual, “Honey, you’re looking a little heavy in the stomach/butt/thigh/face….” from my mother.

                Numbers have directed me since middle school. In sixth grade, we started algebra and it took me months to figure out how to find x. I realized there was a thirty dollar difference between my Kmart jeans and everyone else’s from American Eagle. I measured my food and counted my calories to maintain a size zero figure. These numbers, simple and straightforward, complicated everything.  Dark and ugly, the numbers on the scale were the definition of everything I wanted to change.

                My alarm went off, its obnoxious ringing impossible to ignore. It was barely light out and the snow was coming down heavily. The weatherman had predicted four to six inches by noon. There was nothing more I wanted than to close my eyes and stay in bed until I had to go to work but I saw the white dress hanging in my closet.

                Half an hour later I was on the elliptical machine at the gym, watching my incline climb from four to five. I had been on it for six minutes and burned twenty seven calories. I had twenty four minutes to go before I could get off and six more days to fit into my dress. I wasn’t going to let one inch of stubborn zipper and my mother’s insult-laced compliments ruin my Christmas. When my time ran out I chose the extreme fat burning course and I settled in for another half an hour of hell.

                With every movement my legs burned and I wondered why I was even doing this. I watched myself in the mirror on the wall and I looked fine. I was thin. Nobody could call me fat, not even me. Yet I was driven by numbers. I let my pants size define me. I deprived myself holiday cookies and cupcakes to fit into a dress I would wear for four hours. The 116 flashing up at me on the scale made my stomach turn. It would be different if I was at the gym for the first time in months because I was motivated to be healthy and fit but….I was there out of pure vanity.

                I still had seventeen minutes to go on my second course when I slapped the stop button with my shaking hand. My legs felt like rubber when I stepped off the machine and I remembered why I had been meaning to cancel my membership.

                For the next five days I set my alarm at seven for an early morning workout but never got out of bed. I ate the muddy buddies my co-worker made and a piece of cheesecake. The night of the party, I wore my hair down to cover the imperfect inch in bouncy curls. I felt like a princess and when my mother looked me up and down and said “Honey….you’re looking a little heavy. How much do you weigh now?” I smiled sweetly and lied. “I don’t know, Mother. I threw out my scale.”

 

               

               

               

               

 

               

a new order

                 Erin and I trudged up the hill, sweating. It was early October but it felt like summer and we soaked up the afternoon sun.  We were later than usual but we weren’t in a hurry to get home where we would have to explain the reason why we were so late. I was dreading the inevitable interrogation of my mother who would never understand that I didn’t deserve to get detention. I couldn’t wait to be grounded from the phone for another month. “Isn’t it weird that your Mom is having a baby?” Erin asked.

                “No, not really,” I said, smiling to hide my guilt. At twelve, I knew it was selfish of me to dislike my unborn brother. I knew I should be happy for my mother, that I should be excited to be a big sister. Part of me was. I loved that sweet smell only babies have, their smooth skin. I knew he’d be cute and laughing babies always made me crack up.  Still, at twelve, I saw his arrival as an invasion of privacy. Our apartment was tiny, barely large enough for all live members of my family. There was no extra bedroom and the new bundle of joy was booting me out of mine. My new residence was the large hallway we used as an office between the living room and kitchen.  It had a tiny closet and retro orange tiles covered the floor in a hideous geometric design. Curtains were put up as doors and I knew I wouldn’t be able to block out the baby’s constant wailing. As someone who highly valued their beauty sleep, this was catastrophic.

                He was born on June 30^th in the same hospital as me. Eight weeks early, he was a tiny 4 pounds 7 ounces and his lungs were underdeveloped. He didn’t cry; he wasn’t strong enough, and the only way he could breathe was through tiny tubes. His name was Harley Michael, a true homage to his father.

                Mike was a biker. It was his vice, his joy. Mild-tempered and quiet, he lived to ride his Harley Davidson. Every summer night Mike and my mother took a ride, travelling east to Belfast or down Route 1A to Bar Harbor. In the winter they went to Bike Week in Daytona, riding their cobalt blue bike all the way down the east coast. He had a good job as a member of the parts department at Darlings Honda Nissan. It was uninspired work and while he was apathetic towards his day-to-day life, he was an adventurous and happy peson. A carefree lifestyle had allowed him many years of irresponsibility and at thirty-six Mike was ready to be a father for the first time. He had been ecstatic when my mother found out she was pregnant, proud when he found out they were having a boy. Now he was worried and sad, praying to a God I never knew he believed in.

                I prayed right next to him, silently taking back every negative thought I’d had about my brother. I bartered with God, promising to be the best sister I could be if Harley was okay. It was rough. Very early, he had a violent allergic reaction to breast milk. He was also allergic to soy milk; the only thing his sensitive body would accept was rice milk. He gained weight slowly and eventually he could breathe on his own. One and a half months after his birth, Harley came home.

                He took over my room. The walls were bare and the closet was filled with puke rags and diapers. Tiny shoes and socks barely big enough to cover my pinkie sat on the shelves and a white crib was against the wall where my bed used to be. My bookshelf was gone and its place was a shiny white changing table. There was a rocking chair in the corner and each day my mother spent hours sitting in it, cradling him in her arms as she tried to get him to sleep.  He cried all the time, hardly slept at all. It was colic, the doctor said. It was supposed to go away after a while. The striped curtains hanging in my doorways did nothing to block out his screaming and I slept with headphones on, a pillow over my head.

                I didn’t sleep through a single night for months. None of us did. We took advantage of the hours Harley silently slept only to be woken up by his desperate screams.  Most nights my mother, irritable and exhausted, was unable to coax him back to sleep. Eventually, Mike would gently take Harley from her arms and send her back to bed, doing everything he could to calm his son.  On particularly bad nights, he’d pack up the diaper bag and go for a ride, just so everybody else could get some sleep. Sometimes I sang him songs under my breath as we paced across the living room.  I bounced him up and down in my arms for hours, lulling him to sleep. The second I stopped moving he would wake up and I quickly learned which floorboards creaked as I walked in circles in the dimly lit living room, enjoying the silence.

                Eventually, Harley slept through the night and his ear piercing screams became angry murmurings only he could understand. Settled in his crib, baby monitor on, my whole family could sleep again and a new order was restored. Each night, before I retreated to my makeshift bedroom, I would wander into his room and place my hand on his tiny back, touch his silky skin. I missed our time together, those long nights hanging out in the living room.

a love affair

         “We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not we are homesick most for the places we have never known.”   Carson McCullers

 

 

 

             Sometimes the comforts of home, the assurance of familiar roads and the friendly faces at the neighborhood store are not enough to quell the desire to travel. Sometimes the simple things are suffocatingly mundane. The woman behind the counter at the bakery knows your order too well. She has your coffee, two creams, one equal, ready when you walk in so you feel bad telling her you actually wanted an ice coffee with a shot of espresso. Your mailman knows the date your cable bill is due and the mountains across the still river seem so small.

My mother, born and raised in Massachusetts, has never been able to appreciate where she is. She’s fascinated by the endless fields in Nebraska and Montana’s blue sky. She buys books about Alaska and looks for homes to buy in Kansas. She’d rather be anywhere than here, even places she’s never been.

When I was a kid, she was obsessed with Florida. It was all she talked about. “Someday….” she’d say wistfully and I could tell she thought if we were there everything would be different. In her alternate reality Florida was the magic potion that would fix her problems.

I was nine the first time we took a vacation to Orlando. We drove the East coast in Bessie, my Mom’s old Chevy. My brother and I fought nonstop. He hogged the backseat and the Gameboy, laughed when I got carsick. Our grandmother, sitting comfortably in the front seat, ignored us as she read her Danielle Steele romance and my mother occasionally yelled “shut up” when our bickering got out of hand. Most of the time she ignored us, turning the radio up and belting out Bruce Springsteen tunes.

Two days and too many stops at the McDonald's drive-thru later we arrived at our hotel and checked in. My mother was relaxed. She couldn’t get enough of the warm air and the palm trees softly blowing in the air. Lizards winded across the concrete path to the pool and when it rained in the afternoon she said it smelled like heaven. I had never seen her smile more or heard her laugh so hard. She was happy.

The ride home wasn’t nearly as fun. My brother and I argued and my mother’s patience disappeared along with her smile. The radio stayed on whatever country music station was available and she cried when a sad song came on. Florida’s magic waned before we even saw the sign that said “Welcome to Georgia,” and my brother and I settled in for the long ride home.

As the years went by my mother’s Floridian love affair grew deeper. She lived for that one week in April when she could smell the afternoon rain again. Each year, at the end of the trip, her and my stepfather would come home arguing, my mother miserable and depressed because he didn’t want to move to Florida.

My mother forgets that Maine is Vacationland and millions of people travel every summer to see its rocky coast. They come thousands of miles to climb Mount Katahdin and eat fresh lobster. The coastal air is fresh and clean and there is an incomparable charm to the small towns nestled along the ocean. My mother, homesick for a place she barely knows, cannot see the Maine everybody loves because she is mourning a life she’ll never have.

I am my mother’s daughter. I’m a traveler too and I am in love with cities whose air I’ve never breathed. I adore the shops in Paris and the beaches of Nice. I lust over the hills in Italy; my mouth waters for tiramisu. Penguins are my favorite animal and I am in awe of the ice-covered terrain they inhabit.  I pretend to know the culture of Manhattan like I’ve lived there my whole life though I’ve only been to New York once….and stayed in Brooklyn. My love affair with travel is with the whole world.  Innocent and idealistic, it's open to anything and hopeful for it all. Crushingly romantic and curious, my passion comes from a craving for adventure, not a need to escape. I am half my mother's daughter....

a fly on a dressing room wall

                “Where was the last place you remember having it?

                “I don’t know! I didn’t even know I had it….you must have left it in there when you gave me my purse back.”

                I couldn’t believe I had lost Megan’s camera. Her BRAND NEW camera. The one she had bought to film an audition on. The role was made for her. The character only had a few lines but she was memorable. Beautiful and sarcastic, carefree.  After thirty-two takes, her audition was flawless.

                “I can’t believe you lost it…..Oh my God, Sam, how the hell could you do this? It was perfect! I had finally gotten it right. I can’t do it again! You have to remember where you went today. Every. Single. Store.”

                “Okay…..First I went to Walmart to get cat food. Left my purse in the car. From there I went to Macy’s. Oh my God, I forgot! Remember that dress you almost got for Olivia’s wedding last summer? The one with the turquoise and orange? It’s ON SALE for like, twenty-two bucks. “

                “Did you buy it for me?”

                “No.”

                Megan stared at me, her arms crossed in front of her. “Then I don’t care.”

“Anyways, I couldn’t find anything I liked there…..isn’t it weird how when you have money to spend you can’t find anything you want to buy but when you don’t you want everything you see?”

                “Sam!  Focus! Where did you go next?”

                “Sorry. Okay….sorry. So I went to American Eagle and got a hoodie for like twelve bucks and then I went to Target.”

                “Did you try anything on” Megan asked.

                “Yes, and nothing fit right.”

                We drove to Target. I prayed her camera was there, knowing my future happiness depended on it. I distinctly remembered how long Megan had pouted when the heel on a fifty dollar pair of boots broke. Every time we saw anybody wearing a similar pair she re-lived how much she ‘loved’ them. “See how good they look on her? They go with everythinggg,” she would say. “Comfy too….” She was relentless, complaining until spring rolled around and everybody stopped wearing her boots.

                I knew losing her camera was worse and it crossed my mind that if we didn’t find it I might not have the luxury of listening to her whining ever again. I was sweating as we ran past the racks of bathing suits and flowing maxi dresses towards the dressing rooms in the back of the store. “Hi! I was in here earlier and I lost a camera. Have you found anything?” I asked

                The girl behind the counter stared at me blankly. “Ummmm, I don’t know. I just got here.” Her dark brown eyes were dull and bored and her pale skin looked lifeless against her jet black hair. “You can go look if you want.”

                Megan ran past the service desk and carts filled with rejected clothing. “Which one were you in?” she asked.

                “This one.”

                The dressing room was a disaster.  Shirts and jackets were hanging up on the hooks, inside out. More clothes were on the floor. “I would be so pissed if I worked here and people did this to me,” I said.

                Megan agreed, nodding as she sifted through the pile of swimwear and tank tops in the corner. “Yes, oh my God! Thank God!” It was there, hiding under a striped sundress and a skimpy black one-piece.

                “It’s on….” Megan said, scrutinizing the camera’s small screen. “How do I get to the main menu?” She fiddled with the buttons until the screen went black and the giggling started. “What is this?” she asked.

                “I can’t believe how much weight I’ve gained since last summer!” a young girl exclaimed.

                “Shut up! You’re soooo skinny!” said another girl in the distance.

                “No, I swear. I tried on this dress I bought last summer and it is so friggin’ tight I can’t even zip it.”

                “Whatever, you’re crazy,” her friend said. “Ugh. This looks so bad! I can never wear long skirts…”

                “Let me see.” We heard the simultaneous click of two dressing room doors opening. “Oh yeah….I see what you mean! Definitely. No.”

                “FYI. I got that shirt you’re wearing last week and it’s already falling apart,” the other girl said.

                The doors clicked again and there was silence.

                Megan and I looked at each other. “Those poor girls are so worried about their weight,” she said.

                I laughed. “They sound just like we did when we were in high school.”

                All of a sudden we heard a baby screaming. “Shhhhh, sssshhhhh. It’s okay,” a woman cooed. “Let Mama try on some clothes.”

                “Mama, Mama, Mama!!!” a toddler yelled, clapping his hands.

                “Oh Eve, it’s okay,” the woman said soothingly.

                “Mama!!”

                “Jackson! Sit down!” she said sharply. “Please.”

                “I’m booooooreeeeeddddd!” he yelled.

                “Here. Why don’t you show your sister the pictures in this book.”

                She sighed heavily, her exhaustion and frustration apparent.

                “This is a cat. This is a dog. This is a fish. This is bear. This is a bunny rabbit. This is a….Mama! What is this?” the little boy said.

                “That. That is a cow,” the woman said. Her patience had returned.

                 “This is a cow. Mama?”

                “Yes, Jackson?”

                “You should get that one. You look pretty!”

                
                  The red light on the camera faded out and the screen went completely blank. The battery was dead.

                Megan and I smiled at each other, giggling like the two girls in the beginning of the recording. “Weird,” I said and she laughed.

it's ony natural

                The darkness had fallen suddenly the way it does in winter, heavy and cold. The world outside my window was bare. Brittle tree branches were exposed, vulnerable to every gust of wind and the frozen ground was a muted brown.

                I picked up my phone to check the time. 6:23. Four minutes had passed but it seemed like a lifetime. He was an hour and a half late. The spinach and cheese stuffed chicken breasts I made were cold, the green beans were limp. The aroma of chocolate cake lingered in the kitchen and I stared at the two heart-shaped cakes sitting side-by-side in front of me, half-done, waiting to be combined. I had been excited for this evening but my positivity had disappeared rapidly, like the sun two hours before.

                It was no surprise, really. He was late all the time; it was the only thing I could count on. The same way you know without a shadow of a doubt January will be bone chillingly cold in Maine, anyone who knows him knows he’ll disappoint you. His dad was the same way. It was in his blood, this inconsiderate, selfish streak. He couldn’t help it. This is what I told myself, over and over, as I explained his behavior away. Like always, I felt a strong need to justify his actions. He didn’t mean to hurt me. He didn’t know what he was doing. Rationalizing his wrongs was the only way I could look at him. It was the only way I could love him. For just one minute I wondered if this made me as awful as he was, if we were the same.

                The weather forecast had called for snow but it hadn’t come. Not even a flurry. With a sigh, I took another bite of cake and wished snowflakes were dancing outside my window to cover the ground with their clean and simple beauty. I longed to see the world  before the plows came through and clumps of sand in the snow confirmed that perfection is fleeting. For one night, I wanted to see beauty in the darkness.

(almost) everything you need to know about me

                I was born the day before Halloween. My mother likes to say she was going to demand a C- section if I didn’t come by nightfall. She didn’t want me born a second past midnight, fearing being born on All Hallows Eve would cast a dark curse on my life. However, this didn’t stop her from naming me after America’s nicest witch.

                Superstitious, my mother instilled in me a sense there is something magical about the universe and as a child I avoided cracks in the sidewalk like the plague. When bad things happened, I was told everything happens for a reason; every failure is one step closer to success. 

                I also learned that nothing comes easy in life as I watched my mother work long hours at low-paying jobs to scrape the rent together. We ate a lot of spaghetti and english muffin pizzas and I vowed I would never struggle the way she did. Education would be my key to success. My life would be different.

                Different, it was. After high school, I fled the country and headed north to Halifax, Nova Scotia where I attended Dalhousie University as a nursing student. At eighteen, I was unsure of myself and quickly realized that I had made a mistake. While Halifax was beautiful, clean, and exciting, nursing wasn’t for me and after a year, I came home.

                The next few years were a blur of low-paying jobs at clothing stores and pizza shops. Like my mother, I worked fifty hours a week and had nothing to show for it. With no clue how I got in such an undesirable situation and desperate to get out, I re-enrolled in school in 2009, five years after I graduated from high school. I had developed a passion for psychology and threw myself into my new major at Husson University.

                Still, I felt unsettled, like I was on the wrong path. After only a year, the prospect of travel and adventure enticed me to leave Husson and I was off to Colorado. Finally, I had gotten something right. In the snowcapped mountains and open sky I found what I was looking for.

As cliché as it sounds, sometimes you just have to get away to figure out what you want. I came back to Maine with a focus I never had and a goal I had abandoned a long time ago for fear it was too unconventional.  I had gone back to me: a little off the wall, a lot gutsy, and alarmingly unrealistic.

                People don’t understand when I tell them I’m going to be a fashion journalist. They stare, confused as if I just made up a profession to suit me. It's like I just told them I’m moving to LA to be a famous movie star. “How are you going to make money?” they ask, not understanding that my decision to pursue a journalism career is the result of failed attempt after failed attempt to force passion for anything that would provide a stable, conisistent income. To me, it is apparent I'm never going to finish anything if I'm not doing what I love. The prospect of money and security isn't enticing enough to opt for practicality.

                I will graduate from Eastern Maine Community College in May with a degree in Liberal Studies and then I am off to California to get my Journalism and Media Studies degree at either Cal State Fullerton of USC. I am beyond excited, nervous, and certain I am going exactly where I am meant to be.