The Hard Answer

Once a year at the place I work we have this training. It starts off like most trainings you’d have at your work. Everyone comes together, complaining that they have better things to do than be here at this. You find your friends and sit together and talk about your day so far. We have an expert come in and talk to us, and then we do some group work on the topic and call it a day. It’s a workplace training that myself and the people I work with are used to. It’s a training for what to do if there an active shooter in my building. My building is an elementary school that is filled with 800 children everyday. The active shooter training is the one we dread the most. We are educators, not police or military. We are experts in reading, and math, not barricading and disarming. Yet, there we are. Learning how to do those very things from some very brave police officers.

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Use Your Voice

This morning, I happened to wake up right when the sun was rising. I slid out of bed, dragged a plastic chair out onto the balcony of my new apartment, and sat and watched the sky fill with light. The crows that hide out on Vanderbilt University’s campus flew past Kirkland Tower and over the buildings of West End. I’ve noticed that these birds are creatures of habit during the time I’ve spent as a student at Vandy. I’ve noticed that they fly the same path in the early morning and again around 5 o’clock. It’s hypnotizing to watch the flock of birds go together, owning the sky.

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(Untitled)

I started dating a guy. He wasn't really good for me, but he wasn't really bad for me either. We were more like friends that happened to be dating, rather than actually in love. We slept together. After a while I panicked that I might be pregnant. It would have been horrible to be pregnant; because I don't know how to raise a child and I don't want to be a mother. And besides that, I like being able to do what I want when I want. 

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The Worst Relationship I Ever Had...was with Food

I still remember the first time that I became aware of my arms.

I was reading a fashion magazine and an actress was quoted saying that of all her body parts, she was most concerned about her arms and keeping them in shape. It was the first time I realized that arms COULDN’T be in shape, and I wondered how mine fell on the spectrum. I felt disappointed and concerned, wondering if there were other parts of my body that I’d essentially neglected to stress about. I hoped that I’d never find out.

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Advice to Myself on My 27th Birthday

In August of 1915 my great grandmother was turning 27. She was married, living on a farm in Kansas, and had somewhere around four children (she would go on to have thirteen children when all was said and done). In October of 2015, one hundred years later, I am truing 27. Sometimes I think about my great grandmother’s life, how one hundred years and two month separate us. What kind of thoughts was she having on her birthday in 1915? Was she fulfilled with life? Was she happy? Did she wish she had done things differently—perhaps ended up somewhere else, with someone else? I think of her often, living a parallel life to my own one hundred years apart.  And I’m thinking of her this week, as I turn 27 and examine my life so far. 

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Just Like a Tattoo

How does one define their life? How do you sum up everything that has happened in the last 20+ years? A friend told me that the best stories are about overcoming obstacles, how one deals with loss and love, and finding the silver linings. I believe that my body art tells my story. I’m proud to say that when I chose to decorate my body with tattoos, I chose from my past experiences to show things that are important to me. Things that have shaped my life.

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Just Saying Goodbye: Reflections on a Farm House

My grandfather died in early December of 2013. He had dementia, and it wasn’t wholly unexpected. He died on the farm. He always said that was where he wanted to die, always refusing to move--even when my dad and his sisters insisted. He loved the land more than anyone I know. For so many farmers working the land has become just another way to make money, there is nothing spiritual left in it. But for my grandfather, I think working the land, standing in a field of corn, held something holy.

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Not Just a Survivor

I am a survivor of abuse and rape. I don’t ignore that reality, and I’ll never forget it. I take medicine for PTSD daily and am a client of the campus counseling center where I can get free therapy. But it’s also not my whole story. I am also a wife, a PhD student, a friend, and a daughter-in-law; but most importantly, I am a child of a loving God.

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DIVINA

I have a tattoo on my neck that reads         D I V I N A.

It is the feminine term for divine, in Spanish. You see, I have chosen to affirm my greatness through my body, and I consider this tattoo a proclamation to myself and an affirmation to my female ancestors. I love this tattoo because it is an indicator for outsiders to know who they are dealing with, when they approach me.

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Bathroom Revelation

I don’t remember how old I was. Eight or nine possibly. Some details didn’t stick in this guilty memory. But I remember the restaurant. It was a cheap pizza chain. I remember the smell of heat-lamp pizza and wilted pink salad with ranch. I remember the pleasure of seeing greasy wadded up paper napkins on empty beige plates next to half-drunk red plastic cups. Empty plates meant full tummies. And of course I remember distinctly the stained industrial carpet under the tables and chairs where I crouched and hid in mortification.

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