"and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that"
Warsan Shire

Despite my interest in medicine, I've always had my reservations about pursuing a medical career, although I've never known how to articulate those reservations. I think, "I should be a nurse - it's medical, I could work in a hospital, I could help people - what could go wrong?" But today I realized what exactly could and, probably would, go wrong.

I learned my first semester at Salem how vital creativity is to my well-being. If I'm not creative enough, especially because I don't have time to be, I get sad; I feel like part of me is left-behind. I need to do things I can put my whole entire soul into, things that make me forget about time and politics and anything negative. I feel like teaching would give me that more than any other career (that I'm capable of) would. It seems perfect for me - I could be constantly learning, constantly reading, constantly trying to find new ways to share. I just really feel like a teacher in my soul.

I've been having a hard time, but last night, for a whole hour, sitting next to someone I've come to dearly love, I couldn't stop smiling. Even when I tried to stop, I couldn't.  It was just four friends (mostly new), a gingham and Hank Williams themed barbeque restaurant, a small order of hush puppies, bluegrass music played by a quartet of older men, and me.

Being there, surrounded by banjo playing and happy people, I didn't feel eager to leave the south anymore. It was one of those small moments where I remember why I love the place I'm from and why I'll want it back one day if I ever live somewhere else. I'll always miss that automatic feeling of belonging that comes from walking into a room full of smiling people. But people who aren't getting paid to be nice, who are really smiling and happy to see you - a stranger.

One thing that has always scared me about getting older is the way life will become divided into chapters. Except most of the details of those chapters will be lost, and the only thing remaining will be old photograph books, whatever the mind manages to hold onto, and maybe a few journal entries here and there. I always wonder: if I won't remember these things one day, these things that are everything to me now, does that mean they might as well not even happen? Obviously every major event, no matter how many details I remember, will shape me in some fashion (although I may not be aware of it), but the thought of memory loss is still perpetual and scary, and the end result is sentimentality and an obsession with documentation.

I noticed last night that everyone there to hear music (besides us, of course) were around the same age. I realized then for the first time how beautiful it will be to grow old with the other members of my generation and have, at least on some large level, the same life chapters. Right now, milk is $2.99 a gallon (okay I am really cheap and buy the store brand). We have the Iraq and Afghanistan war. We had Nickelodeon as children, and we were young when internet became a part of every household. We're part of the gay marriage debates, the voter suppression legislation, the Obama administration. We also have Lady Gaga, Flo Rida, and Kenny Chesney. When we're old, our memories will all contain these things, among all the other things we still have to live through. Just like all the generations before us, we'll all have our own chunk of history to say we lived through together. We'll see the world change, and we'll change it ourselves.

I don't know why I'm having such a hard time. It makes me feel guilty to think that I could be so sad when my life has contained so little trauma thus far. But ever since last night, I've had the overwhelming feeling that everything will be okay. It was like a small, yellow light in a dull room.

To do:

• Study for the GRE 
• Take the GRE 
• Take the subject test 
• Write my senior paper 
• Pick out grad schools 
• Become brave enough to ask for teacher recommendations 
• Apply for grad schools 
• Apply to other schools as a back-up plan 
• Try not to worry 
• Try not to worry about money 
• Try not to worry about my parents' finances 
• Convince myself that not getting into grad school ≠ the end of the world 
• Convince myself that it will be okay and that I'm young and don't need to freak out about this 
• Try to develop an interest in getting older (I have been working on this but not much progress has been made) 
• Stop 
• Worrying 
• Be healthy 
• Watch lots of Grey's Anatomy 
• Sleep

I've imagined myself being in the medical profession my whole life. When I was little I wanted to be a brain surgeon. And then a paramedic. And then a pediatrician. And then a neonatal nurse. My favorite show was Trauma: Life in the ER, and the first time I visited Baptist Hospital, I never wanted to leave. I wanted to explore and find the trauma and surgeries and sickness and organs and blood. My parents thought they'd given birth to the most morbid child.

Not even my own minor illnesses kill my fascination. Diagnoses have always evoked fascination and curiosity - never fear. In second grade I was out of school for a week because I was sick with a mysterious stomach flu, and even though I felt completely horrible, the only thing I looked forward to was the doctor visit. I asked if I could take the x-rays of my stomach home, and they're still laying on top of my fridge in a yellow envelope, buried beneath a collection of x-rays kidnapped from my parents' various doctor visits.

Sometimes I feel as if I must be just like Harold from Harold and Maude. He was obsessed with death - with funerals, hurses, and pretending to die - until he experienced death for real, and then he symbolically let his hurse drive itself over a cliff. Now that I'm older, I'm an employee at a hospital, have sick family members coming out of my ears, have experienced my own fair share of sickness, and I still haven't had that Harold moment where I realize that maybe human anatomy and medicine aren't so thrilling after all.

Still, other things keep me from the medical world. I have no faith in my chemistry abilities, no time for pre-med in my undergraduate career, the worst phobia of puke, and seeing other people's blood makes me dizzy. And, at least for right now, I love other things more. I'd rather be learning poetry and how the brain works, not organic chemistry. I still feel too young for that - like I need to grow more.

Maybe this means I don't love medicine enough to actually pursue it, or maybe it means I don't have enough faith in myself, or maybe it means I just really really hate puke. But things can get confusing when I walk through the hospital on my lunch break, completely in love with everything, asking why am I not doing pre-med? over and over and over and over again.


I just always want a hospital to go to. Not to be sick (although hospitals come in handy for that, too), but to be a tiny part of a huge science-obsessed community that experiences human nature at its rawest on a daily basis. I love the structure of the hospital, the shuttles that go all over the city, how official  the signs and maps inside seem (as if to say, "these are all the ways in which science has succeeded"), and how seeing a surgeon or a doctor walking around makes me feel like I'm seeing the president or a celebrity or really anyone who is extremely important. (And who could be more important, at least in a hospital?) 


Emergencies and operating rooms and codes and drugs all seem so thrilling. And so does being a detective who uses charts and symptoms and tests to find answers. But still, being where I am now, I have no clue how to get there. Or if it's really what I want (right now, knowing the brain as best as I can is really what I want). 


I'm convinced loving too many things can be a curse, especially when time is limited and education is expensive and people think you should know what you want to do by the time you're a senior in college. 

Things my parents taught me

A
As are to be preferred. They earn $5.00 each at report card time, whereas Bs only earn $3.00, and anything less earns nothing - not even pocket change. Fs cancel out all the other grades, so one F means you get no money at all, even if every other grade is an A or a B.

B
Be careful with your money once you get it, even if you do get it for making As. Don't let it fall out of your pockets when you go to ball games and skating rinks; don't spend it all on candy and nail polish. You never know when you might need it for something more important, like a broken computer or a surprise concert where tickets cost two report cards full of As.

C
Cats are nothing but giant rats who have no business living inside of houses with people.
Cats are the third best animal in the world, just below dogs (first place) and humans (second place).

D
Dorals cost $30.00 a carton, so if you smoke two cartons a week, it costs $60.00 a week to pave your lungs black with tar. Don't let yourself become addicted to silly things, like nicotine and bingo-playing.

E
Eat before you go grocery shopping.

F
Fun doesn't necessarily mean amusement parks and trips to Toys 'R' Us. It can be yardsales early in the morning with bags of Barbie clothes for sale; it can be twenty-five cent doll clothing that used to belong to a real baby; it can be a homemade waterslide in the backyard, one made with old blue tarp and a snake-like water hose.

G
Gravely makes the best lawnmowers, followed by John Deere, and then Cub Cadet.

H
If there is a Heaven, only people who are never mean to animals will be there.

I
Icicles hanging from the roof of a porch can be broken off and eaten like a rain-flavored popsicle, and snowballs can be saved in the back of the freezer, just so long as there's room for them amongst all the frozen burgers and vegetables.


J
Jessica is a name that doesn't fit in with a family full of daughters with T names. Tina, Tanya, Tracy, and Jessica.

K
Kites aren't for those who are messy and often find themselves tangled up in enough trouble as it is. Some people just aren't kite people.

L
Love can be existent without being spoken of for years and years. Love is a thing some people don't like to talk about. And some people don't show it through hugs and kisses and presents. Instead, they show it through meals and working and building.

And some people show love by letting the extra stray dog stay on the porch instead of taking him to the pound or shooting him out in the woods.

M
Markings on the backs of plates and teacups and butter dishes can tell you how old they are, whether they're antiques or reproductions, and how much money one can sell them for in a little downtown antique shop. There are entire books about these markings, they're so important.

N
Never go to the circus; they're mean to animals there. Never leave messes behind; always clean up behind yourself. Never be a burden to anyone. Never let people buy you things. Never ask people for things. Never ask for help unless you absolutely need it. Never cause a scene in public. Never disrespect your father. Never say words like "lesbian" in front of your grandmother. Never disagree with your grandfather when he tries to talk about politics. Never refuse to let things go. Never forget to wear sunscreen, even when it's cloudy outside and you're under water. Never feel like you're too old for something you love; if you want to take your dolls with you to college, do it.

O
Oceans are not good places to leave a kid alone for three weeks.

P
Practice is most important - not genetics or intelligence or being gifted. Practice, practice, practice.

Q
Quiet is good: a quiet home in the woods where there's not much traffic, a quiet place to read, the quietness of the telephone when it isn't always ringing.

R
Make sure your children are ready to get rid of their Barbies before you donate them to Goodwill.

S
Sometimes it's okay to splurge and spend a little extra money on something, like guitars or hardwood floors or name-brand cheese, if you can afford it and it makes you happy. But only sometimes.

T
Televisions are for cartoons every Saturday morning: Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. They're for Wheel of Fortune in the evenings and for Lifetime movies late at night, after everyone else has gone to bed.

U
Unzipping your coats and jackets and leaving them by the front door for someone to trip over isn't a nice thing to do.

V
Violins are good. Violins and banjos and guitars and fiddles - all moving quickly enough for dancing.

W
Weekends are for renting scary movies and watching them together in the dark, in the living room.

X
XXX stores are bad, especially the one up on a hill in Bluefield, West Virginia. Never ask your father if you can go, even if you're five and the sign says "Adult Toy Store."

Y
"Yes" is a word children should hardly ever hear.
"Yes" is a word children should hear as often as possible.

Z
Zodiac signs are for real. Or, at the very least, fun.