five (common app essay no. one)

When I was younger, my uncle Red would come up and visit us nearly every month. He would hop off the train with a red duffle bag and a copy of the New York Times tucked under his arm. After scooping me up in a bone crushing hug and singing bad songs to me and my little sister the entire car-ride home, he would sit with me on our couch and teach me how to read the newspaper.

The New York Times, at first glance, is intimidating. It’s chaos on a page. But he taught me that the seemingly oddly placed columns are there for a reason; you can fold the paper and only read a story at a time. They make it like this for a reason, he said. It's so you don't take up too much space on the subway.

I liked the feeling of the thin, inky paper under my fingertips. I liked that it left colored smudges on my skin, and that big picture on the front page would be colorful and, sometimes, a little scary. A woman crying...people in huddled masses...a little boy staring me right in the face.

I didn't actually read the paper, because I was more concerned about my family of Webkinz at the time. But the awe of pouring over a newspaper with my uncle and folding the pages in precise ways to read only one story at a time has stuck with me.

Fast forward maybe 8 or 9 years, and I’m a freshman in high school. In the grocery store, I usually let my fingers run over the tops of fashion magazines to feel the thick, glossy pages bound together, and I hover over the newspaper stands to glance at the headlines. In school, I hear on the morning announcements that the school’s newspaper, The Maroon, is having a meeting. My interested is piqued, and I show up to see old issues of the paper scattered around the room – real newspaper paper, with real newspaper paper ink.

I was sold. I joined the staff; I wrote for the paper; I checked the small box that said Interested Major: Journalism when I took the PSAT for the first time. I essentially let my life be consumed by The Maroon and, by default, the news.

All because of newspaper paper.

To say that my fascination with the printed news didn't come from my uncle Red would be a lie. And to say that I wouldn't be the same person without his New York Times lessons would also be true. Without him, I would not be a child possessed with the news; I wouldn't let out an audible gasp whenever I came out of Port Authority and saw the New York Times offices, not would I listen to the NPR newscast every morning as I walk to school and every night when I do my school-work.

And maybe that's just a reflection of me having an obsessive personality, or making poorly based decisions -- I dedicated four years of my life to something because of paper, and I plan on doing it again -- but whatever it really means, I'm ready to dive in.

Thanks, uncle Red.

four

I have a confession to make.

I’m not an athlete.

I’m guessing that this statement will be followed by some scoffing or maybe some generic comforting statement, like oh, no, Meg, don’t say that! But…please.

I’m five feet tall. I have short arms and even shorter legs. I have literally no depth perception or hand-eye coordination. I will be the first to admit that I’m a little thick around the middle. I hate being outside if it’s anywhere above 80 degrees.

I mean, I’ve come to terms with this. I acknowledge the fact that I’m not fast or tough or strong. And yet I have this weird little voice in the back of my head that says I should try and do dumb athletic things .

Which sucks, because I have this really weird relationship with failure. I face it a lot, and yet I still haven’t found a way to swallow it.

Example: I throw discus. Which, again, is a dumb thing because I’m short and not fast or strong. I can hold my own, but I only get so far.

My goal this year was to qualify for MHALs – 70 feet. I've done it before, but the problem is that this year I fell into a funk. I couldn’t seem to break 69’10”, no matter what I did. The worst part was that my coaches sent me anyway and lied about my distance, so I could throw. I felt pity radiating off of them when they told me that – sad smiles and awkward pats on the shoulder, a small phrase of encouragement.

What’s worse – I went to the meet and hit 69’10”. Again.

I don’t really know what the moral of the story is. Maybe it’s that I should know what my abilities are and try not to overstretch myself. Maybe it’s that I need to work harder to reach my goals.

Either way, I can assure you that you will never, ever see me running a marathon or doing any other sport.

edit: if you want to learn how to throw discus, here's a link

three

When I was younger, I went to Bible Camp.

I didn't really think about how weird this was until I mentioned it to a friend, off-hand, and their eyes widened in awe.

Sorry, what?

So, yeah. I used to go to Church every Sunday, Religion Class every Tuesday, and Bible Camp for a week every summer. I was -- technically, still am -- Roman Catholic by birth. My mom was raised in the Church, as was her mom before her, as was her mom before her.

We never really talked about the Bible at camp, which was the weird part. We talked about Jesus loved us and how we would all go to heaven because we went to Church and listened to our parents and said our prayers.

So I didn't really worry about going to Heaven.

I didn't worry about it when two women moved in across the street -- not best friends, as my neighbor friends said, but partners -- and I stowed that information in the back of my head.

I didn't worry about it when I was in 5th grade and found myself making up crushes on random boys in my class so I could feel a little less scared of being different.

I didn't worry about it when I was in middle school and had the strange sensation of wanting to hold hands with girls in the same way that my friends were holding hands with boys. Maybe I worried about what my friends would think, but never really what the Church thought.

The truth was that I didn't worry about what the Priests or the Church thought about me, my blossoming sexuality, or my divorced, mostly liberal family until I was 13 years old and becoming an adult in the Church. I was afraid that my little, gay soul was in jeopardy.

And...okay, that probably sounds ridiculous. But here I was, barely even a teenager -- years off  from being a legal adult, mind you -- and coming to the startling realization that I was not only gay, but now also going to Hell. I was going to be subjected to the never-ending fire and brimstone, an eternal sentence with the Devil. No exceptions.

(The weird thing -- they didn't tell me any of this until I was in middle school. If it was this important, why did they withhold that information from me? Perhaps this is yet another Mystery of Faith)

But I didn't say anything. I went through with my classes. I went on Spiritual Retreats with my peers and sang the typical Kumbayah bullshit. I prayed harder and hoped that something would change -- either myself, or the Church.

Plot twist: it didn't.

Another plot twist: I made my Confirmation. I shook hands with the Bishop and wore a dress and had the chrism smudged all over my forehead. I went home that night and cried, because in my eyes, the deal was done. I was a goner.

I was also in the closet for a very long time because of this. I stopped going to Church, cut my hair short, and let myself embrace some of the things that I pretend I didn't enjoy (example number one: I bought rainbow merchandise in mass quantity last year). Hell, I came out to everyone in the school paper because I just wanted to get it over with. I was nervous, sure...but also, maybe a little guilty.

Which is weird, right? It's weird. I've told myself that over and over again -- you no longer believe in that kind of thing, you've reconciled with your past and you've moved on, you're not even sure if there's some Big Guy keeping tabs on you 24/7.

But I guess the uncertainty thing is what kills me. Because the Catholic School training has me constantly doubting myself and making me think that, yeah, I'm probably doing something wrong just by being born, and that I'm going to suffer because I had no choice in the matter. But maybe I'm right.

I guess I'll find out one day.

two

I sat at my computer and stared at this prompt for a very long time. Comfortable? At peace? In a specific location? Me, at peace and totally calm?

I’m sorry, but that’s not me. I have a hard time feeling comfortable. Like, ever.

I’m anxious and frantic; there’s always some part of me going at a mile a minute, whether I’m in the middle of brainstorming something for The Maroon, taking notes in class, typing up an essay, or even sitting seemingly still. I fidget, squirm, pick, and fuss. I’ve been known to ask what the symptoms of Restless Leg Syndrome are, because oh dear God I totally have that don’t I? It’s kind of become my shtick, if you will, but I wish it wasn’t.

I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when I was 14, but that was really a long time coming. I’ve had an overwhelming sense of dread in the back of my mind since I was in fourth grade. It’s that constant sensation of hearing your phone ringing somewhere in your room, but every time you think you’ve found the cell and you can answer it, it stops ringing. Thus, years of panic attacks and the overpowering sense of constantly drowning has made it hard for me to relax.

And that sucks. Like….a lot.

But there are those few, fleeting moments where I’m pulled out of the water and I can breathe again. It’s those moments when a friend calls to go out and we can be quiet together, yet perfectly comfortable.
 
It’s those moments where I can go over to my cousin’s house and play with her kids, and I can just focus on the task ahead of us…stacking one block on top of another, pulling one glove on at a time.

It’s those moments when I’m outside in the shade and the light hits the big, broad leaves at just the right angle that green light filters through and dabbles on my face and I feel like my lungs could inhale so much that they would probably burst.

It’s those moments right after waking up, when my body is still heavy and lethargic with sleep from last night, but my eyes are open enough to watch the light streaming in from the windows catching little dust motes.

I can barely have those moments of delicate equilibrium by myself. I’m too restless to have them on my accord. I need these people and places in my life to help me there.

And, sure, sometimes these things fall apart and I’m left feeling like I’m drowning again. Sometimes little kids are crying and blocks are flying and food is being spit at me during lunch time. Sometimes it starts raining as soon as I start looking up at the trees and I get soaked. Sometimes my alarm goes off and the reality my situation dawns on me.

But...I guess that's my place.

My place is the quiet moments that live, unexpectedly, in the midst of chaos and panic. My place is the calm after the storm – after crying and missing the bus, but having a half hour to sit and watch the sun reflect off of car windows, watch birds fly from nest to nest, watch people go about their lives while waiting for a friend to pick me up and bring me back to the everyday craziness of the world.

Cadence and I having some down time together in her back yard

one

I'm constantly wondering if I can actually trust my memory. I have a hard time remembering whole events, but I can remember snapshots -- brief flashes of images, snippets of sound, a faint sense of an emotion that no longer lasts.

But I have faint memories that still play on loop in my head. It's like when I watched The Sound of Music on VHS so many times as a kid that only small snippets of time play, and the rest is a blank screen. I remember being nearly three years old and walking down the block near Prospect Park, waiting for my baby sister to be born. I remember being seven, or maybe even eight, and meeting my cousin Kristin for the first time -- I just got a Nintendo DS for making my First Communion, and I wanted to teach her all about the cool microphone feature that it had.

Bigger things stick out in my mind. I remember nearly every detail about the day that my parents announced they were getting divorced. The smell of burning rubber tires on blacktop. Kristin taking me to the movies, letting me eat all the buttery popcorn on top before she had any. Taking me to my favorite restaurant and letting me eat only appetizers for dinner. Going to bed that night thinking that the house was oddly quiet, and yet the deafening silence was too much for me to handle.

I remember the first time I met Kristin's first child, Cadence. It was two months after her birth; she had a hole in her heart and a MRSA colony growing inside her when she was born two months early. She cried when I held her in my arms for the first time. I handed the baby to my mother and ran to the bathroom in tears. How could this baby hate me, when her mother did so much for me?

And then there's this memory -- not really a child anymore, but not quite comfortable with being a teenager, either -- of sitting in a hotel room in Washington DC with Cadence crying in my lap as the TV droned in the background about saltwater aquariums. It's been nearly a year since Cadence and I had our first meeting, and our relationship has been rocky. I'm trying to get her to stop crying, but it's been nearly ten minutes. I was brought on this trip to babysit while Kristin went to a wedding, but my confidence at this point is so shaken that I'm not quite sure who the baby is.

And yet we're sitting in front of the floor-length mirror, staring at our reflections. Cadence huffs and whines until the condensation forms on the glass, and then watches as it dissipates. She strains against my arms and reaches a fragile finger out to draw shapes -- constellations, really -- in the fog.

I remember how fragile this moment was, as any sort of interruption could shatter our brief moment of peace. The funny thing is, I don't remember how this ends, either. Maybe she falls asleep right there. Maybe she starts crying again and I call her mother in tears (probably the latter).

Maybe that's all my memory is, anyway -- huffing and puffing, willing a snapshot to surface in my mind, and then watching it slowly fade away into oblivion.

Cadence had to see me off to "The Ball", better known as Junior Prom.

Our relationship isn't so rocky anymore -- I'm now her "bes' friend"