Part v. Coming of Age
THE END OF HIGH SCHOOL
Years: 1998-2000
I look back on the last two years of high school with sadness and empathy for my younger self. I had experienced numerous traumas that went untreated. Both of my parents were unstable and likely mentally-ill, and my step mother and mom's boyfriends didn't step up to the role of being reliable, trustworthy parental figures either. Beneath the surface there was loss; loss of what a normal childhood should be, and longing; longing for nurturing and a better life. I wished for something better and I worked towards that goal.
I had no consistent adult role models around except for some of my teachers. I did look up to a few of my aunts and uncle on my mom's side. Unfortunately I didn't see them often, mostly on major holidays. Still, it was helpful that they showed us an example of what a responsible adult could be; holding a job, being financially responsible, not causing unnecessary drama.
The world seemed confusing and mildly threatening. Looking back, I can say with certainty this was due to lack of parenting and guidance. I had to figure out life for myself and learn things the hard way. The best solace I could find was in music, art, and friendships. I was doing the best I could with what I had.
“It takes enormous trust and courage to allow yourself to remember.”
―
A LATE BLOOMER
I didn't learn how to apply makeup properly until online makeup tutorials became a thing on YouTube in the late 2000's. Until then I wore very little. I had braces for a few years. I didn't have the nicest clothes, or the fittest body. I went through a couple years with bad acne which I treated with over the counter creams and antibiotics. Nothing seemed to work. My aunt Cindy said she had that too as a teenager, and what worked for her was taking birth control pills to balance the hormones. It did also clear up my skin.
My older sister to me was the “pretty one.” Boys would often tell me how much they liked her. I self-identified as being an “alt" personality or misfit, as I was very into music and art. I didn't have money for the nicest clothes, so instead I tried to dress the weirdest or artsiest. I shopped in the bargain basement of Urban Outfitters. I had a skirt that looked like a black trash bag. A sweater with disconnected sleeves. One time I found some furry boots at Berks shoe store in Cambridge. The boots were half a size too small, but I LOVED them. They were knee high, black fur with sparkles. I wore them many times to high school including graduation day. I also had some generic leather-free imitation Doc Martin boots.
Beauty and "attractiveness" to me was something to be wary of. I downplayed whatever I naturally had. From all the experiences of watching my mother and sister with their toxic boyfriends and also observing my dad using women, I concluded that men behaved badly to women who they found attractive. Men would want to dominate and control those women who they considered beautiful, and make them submissive to them. I refused to be dominated or victimized. I would make beauty my least interesting asset, and I would exude strength and never allow myself to be controlled by a man. This was a coping strategy I developed in reaction to childhood trauma and it was also a cover for pain and feeling vulnerable.
I think perhaps I had internalized some of the misogyny from my dad and society at large. I exuded "not like other girls" energy. If I was too soft, people would trample all over me. If I was too assertive, then I would be unlikeable. I felt myself caught in this narrow in-between. In hindsight, if I truly valued myself, I would be confident in my own worth, regardless of other people's opinions. Acceptance and self-love came much later in adulthood.
MUSIC, CHESS, AND BOYS
I still liked the high school in
Gardner. It provided me with a window into the greater world and an escape
from my home life. I was attending concerts as much as possible
including Ozzfest, Warped
Tour, Lollapalooza, and WAAF events. My friends and I would never
miss a Deftones or 311 concert when they toured through.
Friendships with boys came easier, as it was usually boys who were into the same hobbies as me, but those friendships often came with complications. Some of the boys either had ulterior motives from the start or possibly developed them later. If I wasn't interested, they often wouldn't take no for an answer and would try again and again to cross my boundaries. They didn't care if their crush wasn't reciprocated, they just tried harder. I was forced to end friendships because of that. I felt like my words and wishes didn't matter to them.
There were a couple punk kids in my
school that I was friends with, Justin and Mario, and we traded music
together sometimes, cassette tapes. Through them I got tapes with
Propagandhi, Infest, and Entropy. They liked some Hardcore Punk, and
we would challenge each other to see who could find the “heaviest”
bands. I was happy just to have some friends who were into music as
much as I was.
Justin was asking me out but I
always turned him down. I wasn't interested in him besides friendship. He often made me feel uncomfortable. He told me one day he liked a skirt that I was wearing in class, and that he was looking under the desk at me. During one of the last days of senior year he
said to me “I have a new girlfriend, she is hotter than you.” This was really awkward, and felt like he was trying to hurt me by reducing my value to my looks. I was confused why a friend would do that. I stopped talking to him after high school.
I did like our mutual friend Mario. He was attractive, a positive person, and always respectful. I dated him briefly between junior and senior year. I knew this was a doomed relationship from the start because he was transferring away. It was fun and innocent. He transferred to prep school at Saint Mark's on a hockey scholarship. I didn't see him again after that, though we became friends online later.
There was another boy I was friends with. I used to go to his house to play paintball with him and his brother. At some point he told me he had feelings for me. I told him I only wanted to be friends. Still, at a party one time he kissed me. It was awkward and uncomfortable. I told him the next day that was a mistake and I only wanted to be friends, but he continued to make it impossible. I felt like he was becoming obsessed and could become a stalker. I had to cut off the friendship. On the last day of school/ senior prom he asked me to dance and I refused. He told me that he was going to find another girl with black hair and green eyes, and I think I uttered, “go for it.” I got a really uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. At that point it was clear to me that he saw me as an object to obsess over and not a person.
I also hung out with my friends Joe and Randy often. Joe had three beautiful sisters and a brother. His sisters seemed like magic to me, they were older, very mature and smart. They told me I would be pretty if I wore makeup. That was kind, but I didn't know how.
I had my first drink with Joe and Randy. Mike's Hard Lemonade. We sometimes played strip poker but I always found a way to keep my clothes on. Randy took me for rides on his motorcycle. I preferred them as friends. Joe still would hit on me, but he was mostly respectful. He half-jokingly called me a tease and a prude.. We also all went snowboarding together often. Sublime was one of their favorite bands, and I got into them after hanging out with those guys. They were one year older than me, and they went away to college first.
There was another boy who I was friends with. We met at the Chess club. I went to his house to play chess with him. After I won, I went home. I guess he had a crush on me, and so I started getting threatening phone calls from his girlfriend's friends. They said they wanted to fight me. I was confused because nothing sexual had happened. During one of the calls my older sister, who was visiting, grabbed the phone from my hands. She called the girls out. “Come over here, my friends will be waiting and we'll see what happens.” They never called again. I really admired my sister for that. I can understand now why a girl might be territorial of her boyfriend, but at the time it was quite confusing.
BEST FRIEND
By
the end of junior year, Zuzka had enough credits and top grades to
graduate
early. She was ranked number one in our class. She applied through early entrance to start college a year early and was accepted at Hampshire College. She was missing one gym requirement and an English
requirement to graduate high school which she could make up for in the
first year of college. The
principal and advisors at Gardner High refused to let her graduate
early. Hampshire also didn't offer her the funding to make it possible for her to go. She later chose not to appear in a single photo in the yearbook. I asked her recently why she did this. I had thought it
was out of spite. She disclosed to me that she did it because she was
severely depressed and she felt like a ghost that year. In her mind she
wasn't supposed to be there and she didn't want to be. Avoiding photos
proved challenging as she was in a number of clubs, including being
President of the Debate Club, Vice President of Diversity Club, and
founder of the Animal Welfare Club. She managed to find out when photo
shoots were happening, and ducked out just in time.
I saw her stop caring about school her senior year. She lost her position as number one student, but she was still in the top five. She was admitted to Wellesley College and received some grants and local scholarships. She later transferred to UMass Amherst for financial reasons, and has expressed some of the same frustrations I had.
Watching what happened with Zuzka senior year made me feel really sad for her. I also never submitted a senior photo, and my parents never offered to take me to have the photos taken either.
THE GREAT OUTDOORS
My younger sister and I remained close even though we didn't live together anymore. She would visit our dad and I in Massachusetts, and I would visit our mom and her in New Hampshire. We got into hiking and camping together. In the summers we would hike the SRK Greenway trail, a seventy-five mile loop which went through my mom's town of New London as well as our aunt's town of Wilmot. It also crossed Sunapee, Ragged, and Kearsarge mountains. When we completed the whole trail at one go, it took about seven days. One year we got really bad poison ivy, and had to end the hiking trip early and go to the hospital for a steroid shot.
THE TALENT SHOW
As I was getting deeper into music I also dreamed about forming a band. All female metal band Kitty's debut album Spit came out in 1999. They were high school aged girls too. I admired them. I searched for other people to jam with. There was a girl in my grade who played guitar. I often asked her about forming a band but nothing materialized.
At the end of junior year of high school a talent show was held. My friend Justin invited me to play a Deftones cover with his band. I went to their house to jam one time. I didn't know at the time, but he recorded the session. I was excited for what was to be my first experience performing rock or metal music on stage. However, soon came the Woodstock '99 concert announcement and it was the same weekend as the talent show. It was to be THE place to be for 90's music fans. My friends Joe and Randy all agreed that we had to be there. So I backed out of the talent show in order to go to Woodstock. Justin didn't mind. He was a music fan also so he understood.
Justin's band went on to perform at the talent show, covering Deftones and Rage Against the Machine. They were disqualified for using swear words in their performance. The rebel that he was, I don't think he minded that either.
BEACH WEEK
There was a tradition at our high school that the seniors spend a week at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire close to graduation. I went with Joe and Randy their senior (my junior) year. I met up with some of my New Hampshire friends there. Hampton Beach back then was a bit trashy; lots of litter, shady people, and lots of character. I had a palm reading while I was there. The psychic lady was standing on the sidewalk as she ushered me in. She said I had a very interesting life ahead of me as she traced the lines on my palm. My fate line was long and steady. I asked her about love, she said I wouldn't find true love until twenty-five years old. That seemed like a long time. She said I was destined for a creative life.
Walking along the boardwalk I found a unique record shop. They had mountains of bootleg VHS and cassette tapes. I found a tape of unreleased Deftones songs. It became one of my favorite albums of those years.
WOODSTOCK '99
After many weeks of planning, the week of Woodstock '99 finally arrived. We packed our things into Joe's car; drinks, ingredients for sandwich making, and boxes of PowerBars. We set out for upstate NY, about a three hour drive. After some time in traffic near the entrance, we finally arrived, parked, and set up our tents. The festival grounds were enormous. The concert took place on three stages and it took about ten minutes to walk between them. There were some places to shower, an open room with no shower curtains within a closed off building or tent. Sometimes boys would be peeking through.
There were sinks to wash up in, and
you could fill up your water bottle. We preferred to do this because the spring
water for sale was four dollars a bottle. Some of the water from the sinks and
port-a-potties ended up flooding the lawn resulting in a smelly, muddy ground
where some people liked to lay.
I saved money by not buying much at the fest. I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in our tent. In between bands I met a group of friendly Canadian guys. I offered them some sandwiches and they took me up on it. We chatted for a long time and I exchanged information with one of them. We later became pen pals.
It was July, the sun was full on and it was HOT, estimates had it around a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. We did the best we could to stay cool. There was some supply truck with AC with an offer for girls to cool down in the back. The fee was taking your top off. I wasn't interested.
I saw the most bared breasts at this time than any other time of my life. Women were freely exposing themselves. The misogyny level was high. Remember, this was the era of "Girls Gone Wild" and a golden era for the straight white male. I remember WOW (Whip 'em Out Wednesday) on WAAF, where the DJs Opie and Anthony encouraged male fans to place WOW stickers on their cars, and encouraged women who encountered them to flash them.
My friends
Joe and Randy quickly took off to admire the topless women. I didn't mind keeping
my own company. The second day they decided to do mushrooms, so I
also went off again on my own. I kept a close eye on the schedule for
the festival and made sure to see all the bands I wanted to see. Men constantly shouted at me and the other women in the audience to "SHOW YOUR TITS." I just shrugged it off and carried on.
There were a few tents set up in one area. I spent some time in the PETA tent and talked with the volunteers. There was another tent for a Christian group where I got a necklace with a dog tag that said “true love waits.” I guess it was a chastity type campaign.
I didn't mind being alone as I was enjoying watching all the bands. The Offspring wasn't one of my favorite bands but I remember that they really impressed with their set. It was also interesting to hear Jewel yodeling. Metallica was solid, but at the time I wasn't a huge fan. I made sure to get up to the front row for my favorite bands, the ones I really wanted to see; Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Rage Against the Machine, the latter who I had never seen live. They were burning an American flag on stage. The crowd was huge and densely packed. When it got rowdy, people would be pushing forward, crushing some of us against the barrier. Some “nice” guys offered to protect me and some of the other girls up front. One guy held onto the barrier with his arms from behind me. However during the concert he rubbed against me in a sexual way. I didn't like it, I also didn't see a good way out of there. After the band was done I got away.
There were some moments
I felt unsafe when I was walking back to our tent alone at night. There were many drunk men around. I passed by some men who were playing
the game “Twister” with the big plastic mat. They invited me to
play, but I could only imagine the uncomfortable touching, and I
politely declined. I somehow always made it back to the tent.
We were planning to stay the last night at the festival, but as things were devolving into chaos and anarchy we decided to drive home that night. I met the guys back at the tent after watching The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their performance was good. Anthony invited the girls to throw bloody tampons on stage. As it was getting dark people were holding up their lighters or candles and singing along. Some people started lighting trash on the lawn on fire. That's when I decided to go back to the tent. I could see some people breaking things, and some people trying to break into an ATM. I got worried about what might happen. There didn't seem to be much security around and things were getting more unstable. Some people had broken parts of the wall down and random people were entering the festival with questionable intentions.
I packed up the tent with the guys and we started heading towards the exit. We could see the security guards at the gates. Someone told my friend they were checking bags and taking things so he ditched a knife he had purchased at the festival. We finally made it through. As we were waiting for Randy to pull up with the car we witnessed a horrifying sight. There was a girl laying with her back on the ground and a big man was on top of her, holding her down and covering her mouth. Joe and I looked at each other, worried for her, scared, and unsure what to do. People were moving all around us and no one was making a move to help the girl. I felt helpless myself. Joe didn't do anything either. I think we hoped security would help her. We were scared and trying to get ourselves out of there safely as things were in chaos. When Randy came we got into the car and left. I asked Joe if he remembered this years later, and he said he did. We both regret that we didn't intervene and ask the girl if we could help her. I carry some guilt about that. I wondered if it was her abusive boyfriend or a random man who attacked her. I wondered what happened to her.
Afterwards I buried the uncomfortable memories and feelings, and remembered it as being a "good" concert experience. I would tell other people about how amazing it was that I saw all those bands in the same place. In recent times a couple documentaries came out about Woodstock '99 on Netflix and HBO. I watched one and the memories came flooding back, good and bad. What I can say is, it was definitely a good time for the men, and a completely different experience for the women.
GIRLS
My friends from NH would sometimes visit me in Gardner. We would have parties in my apartment and dance. Across the hall was a neighbor in his 20's renting from my dad who also worked at Wal-Mart with me. He told me about Napster and how great it was you could get free music, any album you want. He burned some CDs for me. I was showing off my friend, isn't she gorgeous? I'd ask her to do the headbanging move, or the strip tease dance move that she could do so well.
One time I had a party at my family's cottage, next to my mom's house. We brought some beers and wine coolers. It was myself, my female friend, her boyfriend, and a couple of their friends. I asked her if she had ever kissed a girl, and she hadn't. I told her that her boyfriend would like it maybe, and we tried it and showed him. He did enjoy it. At some point I left the room and gave them some privacy, I didn't want to get involved beyond a certain point. After the party, we cleaned up and my family never knew.
There were a few other occasions between senior year and the summer afterwards that I experimented with my friend and her boyfriend. I actually cared deeply for her, and not so much her boyfriend. I didn't know how to tell her that, as she was in love with her boyfriend. She loved him, I loved her, and he was just having fun; it was a love triangle. He eventually cheated on her with two other girls. Heartbroken, she moved away to Florida and cut off contact with me and the other friends in our friend group. I felt terrible about that. It was a messy situation and she was a highly sensitive person. Her heart got broken and I felt at least partially responsible for it. They had been in a monogamous relationship before we got involved together, and then it only got complicated. The hardest part was losing a close friend who I cared deeply for. I can look back and realize that most of the blame belongs to her boyfriend who cheated on her. After that experience, I was more thoughtful about my relationships, friendships, and being very clear about communicating expectations. I generally avoided complicated situations and drama.
DRUG ADDICT TENANT
At my dad's house, there was another male tenant and his girlfriend who lived in the apartment above me. They seemed initially nice and adventurous. They were into mountain biking and had some expensive gear. The guy was an ameature photographer and had a number of first generation digital cameras. He gifted me one. We were all friendly in the house. Then things got weird. He and his girlfriend broke up. He behaved more and more erratically. Once, I saw him coming out of the woods in the back of the house (there's nothing there). He had a crazy and distant look in his eyes. He stopped paying rent for some months and my dad had to evict him. My dad and stepmom told me he was a heroin addict. My stepmom always complained that my dad was very bad at selecting tenants. It would often happen that he would choose someone on a whim without doing a background check. Many of them were shady characters and would stop paying rent. Eviction is a long process and many months of rent are never recovered. Still, my dad didn't let my stepmother choose the tenants like she wanted. I think he enjoyed the chaos. It entertained him somehow. He enjoyed being around characters and shady people.
Another time on a whim he gave ten thousand dollars to a local politician. It was for his political campaign, at least that's what he said. He never explained it further. My stepmother demanded he go and get the money back. That was a lot of money for us and we were struggling. He either couldn't or wouldn't.
COLUMBINE SCHOOL MASSACRE
The Columbine School Shooting occurred in April of my junior year of high school. It shocked the whole nation. It was the first of its kind. After it happened, there were some bomb threats called into the school, and each time we were forced to evacuate onto the football field until it was investigated and found to be a false alarm. It gave us the sense that the world was changing and nowhere and no one was really safe. Gun violence was on the rise. Incidents of school shootings only increased afterwards.
CROSS COUNTRY & TRACK
I mostly disliked gym class and team sports. One day at gym class my coach gave me the option of running around the field instead of playing the game (soccer or field hockey). He was impressed with my endurance and he told me I should try out for cross country. That's how I started running my senior year. I also signed up for indoor track. I started out as the slowest on the team and gradually improved to be somewhere in the middle. I liked the self-improvement aspect of running. Instead of being in competition with others, you are in competition with yourself. I enjoyed seeing the progress I was making. Running became something I would continue to do well into adulthood.
CHOOSING ART
Music and art remained very important for me. I continued to do well in school (getting mostly A's and B's). Junior and senior years of high school I enrolled in Advanced Placement Art (and also AP Calculus). Junior year I started thinking harder about what I would want to do for a career. There was no pressure or guidance from my family. My dad always said follow your heart and your passions. I liked math, science, art and music. I felt clearly that I was most passionate about art and had a talent for it, so I decided I would go to art college.
My art teacher, Mr. Lariviere, proved to be a great mentor for me. He was very knowledgeable and encouraging. He challenged me in the right ways and helped me become a better artist. I displayed work in a local gallery and some exhibitions. By junior year I had a portfolio together and he helped me to take slides of my work for college applications.
My mom's boyfriend Scott had taken me to visit colleges including RISD and MassArt. When I was there I went on the tour and picked up a sweatshirt with the school logo on it. I wore it around my high school. Whenever friends or teachers asked me where I planned to go to college, I told them RISD. It was known as the “Harvard” of art schools. It was a well established school with real industry connections, and some very well known artists were professors there. It was my first choice because of the quality of education and also the prestige.
My second choice was San Francisco Art Institute, because I had really liked the city of San Francisco and its long history of being a cultural center for music and art. My aunt Cindy had spent more than a decade there working before medical school. When she knew I was looking at a school there, she told me to go visit and that I could stay with Richard, a friend of hers. She had already moved back East by then. So I took a trip to San Francisco the summer after my junior year, and stayed with Richard. He had a tiny one bedroom apartment in a building he managed. He drove me around the city on his motorcycle. He was a nice and respectful guy and a good tour guide. I enjoyed my time there, including seeing Haight-Ashbury, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the sea lions at Pier 39.
Visiting San FranciscoMassArt, SMFA, and AIB were my last choices because I didn't want to stay in Massachusetts, the same area that I grew up in. I was ready for an adventure.
I remember getting the acceptance letter for RISD in the mail and being overjoyed. I told my parents about it. When I started to discuss the financial aspect with them, my heart dropped. It became apparent they had no plan and no college fund saved up. RISD was the most expensive of all the schools, back then about thirty-thousand USD per year to attend, costing a total of one hundred twenty thousand over all four years. I talked to the financial counselor of the school. She offered only loans (apparently they didn't give grants at all at the school). She suggested if I couldn't afford it, I could start at another school, and transfer in later to save money.
I was accepted to all of the schools I applied to. I had a tough decision to make. My first choice, RISD, seemed unaffordable for me. I knew that choosing the arts was an unstable career choice and I couldn't guarantee that I would make regular income to pay off those student loans. Going out into the professional world straddled with $120K in debt seemed to be potentially life shattering. I was frustrated with my parents and the for-profit education system. I felt like I had done my part; I worked hard in high school, did my homework, earned top grades, and did everything I was supposed to, but still my dream school was out of my reach.
I didn't want to be like my parents who were financially irresponsible, with credit cards and huge debts, who had foreclosed on properties, and also had gone personally bankrupt. I needed to make better decisions, as heartbreaking as it was for me.
SFAI granted me a ten-thousand dollar scholarship per year, so it seemed like the best option at the time. I would take the rest of the cost, approximately ten-thousand per year, in loans. I decided to move forward with SFAI. I paid the non-refundable tuition deposit to hold my place. I told my friends and family that it's where I'd be going. Then out of nowhere, close to graduation, I got a phone call from MassArt. I had been awarded the Paul Tsongas Scholarship through the school.
I had given up my first choice at RISD, and now I gave up my second choice and dreams of a college experience in sunny San Francisco in order to set myself up for success (to not be shackled by debt). I paid the tuition deposit at the last minute, changing course to attend MassArt in Boston. By the time I applied for the student housing, it was already so late, all the dorms were full. I had to live off-campus starting in my first year. I found a place through an ad at the school to share an apartment with sophomore and junior MassArt students, all girls, in Union Square, Somerville, bordering Cambridge. I was paying something like four hundred fifty per month for one out of three bedrooms. Tuition and fees were covered by the Tsongas scholarship, but I would still be responsible for covering my own living costs; rent, utilities, and food.
There were some local scholarships for which I applied through my high school guidance office. One day I was in there meeting with my guidance counselor and I found a bin labeled scholarship applications. I browsed the available scholarship applications, and took anything that I qualified for, took great care to fill them out, and returned them. You need to fill out your information, provide the financials of your family (including tax returns), as well as submit an essay. To my surprise and relief, I was awarded a number of them.
I also applied for a scholarship through Wal-Mart where I was still employed, and I got it. It was a one time thousand dollar scholarship. I saved all these small bits together to cover rent and living expenses, books and art supplies for college. I was, and am, wholly grateful to the community in Gardner and greater Massachusetts for helping me pay for college. I am one of the very few people I know without parental support who graduated college or university debt-free.
Still, it was frustrating that my choice in schools had to be decided based solely on money and therefore I couldn't attend my first choice. It is evident that the higher education system in America is not merit-based, it is for profits first. The system benefits the wealthy and privileged first, as well as the lenders who collect interest on student debt.
Art Club LOSING MY INDIAN GRANDMOTHER
My Indian grandmother, who we called
Atha, became ill between my junior and senior years of high school. We
could tell it was serious. My father planned a trip to visit her. My
mother refused to let me go with him. She had a strict rule that none
of us kids could go to India before turning eighteen. I was upset with her.
I knew this would possibly be my last chance to see her. I pleaded
with my mom to no avail. I think I was longing for a female bond with an
elder maternal figure, as I had no bond with my US maternal
grandmother.
Atha had what seemed to me like an insane life. She was married at age twelve and had at least twelve children, ten of whom made it to adulthood. The eldest girl died from a bad polio vaccine. Our Indian family has a theory that the doctor was poisoning children on purpose as part of a eugenics scheme. Our Indian family are farmers and landowners in a rural area, not the absolute poorest but still poor. Her life must have been difficult. She still managed to carry on with a positive attitude and outlook from what I hear. Her husband, my grandfather, died when my father was away studying. One of my dad's brothers pushed my grandfather down the stairs during an argument and he died a short time later. The head injury most likely caused a fatal stroke. I never met him because he died before I was born.
I wondered how she felt about her life and if she would have passed any wisdom down to me. I never got the chance to speak to her as an older girl. The last time I saw her was when I was a small child and she was visiting America. She used to save the McDonald's styrofoam food containers to take back to India. To her it was something valuable and reusable.
She died from stomach cancer soon after my dad's visit.
I was finally able to visit India when I turned eighteen, in the summer after senior year of high school. The only other time I had been was when I was two years old.
SENIOR PROM AND GRADUATION
I was single through most of high school. Most of the boys I dated were
from a different school system, and it was usually innocent and
brief. When it came time to choose a date for senior prom I didn't have
anyone in mind. I did turn a couple boys down. My gay friend
Jonathan also didn't have a plan, so we decided to go together as
friends. It was fabulous. We were fabulous.
I remember feeling relief around
graduation time. I was going to embark on the next big adventure....
college! Anything was possible. I was determined to leave the past
behind and not let it hold me back from following my dreams. I was
finally an adult, in my mind at least.■
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