What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

Opening a gallery and everything that led me to here.

I grew up homeschooled on a farm in rural Maine, barefoot and dust-laden. I knew from an early age I did not want to be a farmer. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had some take on haptodysphoria, causing me to shiver and prickle with discomfort when I touch surfaces like the roof of my car or feel dirt drying on my fingers. As a farm child, this proved difficult. Each summer I was required to work 10 hours a week and I did everything I could to avoid it. Because of my bizarre touch sensitivities, I often landed in the packing shed, washing vegetables in ice-cold well water until my hands turned a bright marbled red. On the weekends, I’d go to the farmers’ market and make change for customers as a form of homeschool learning––practical and applicable math.

Sometime around 3rd grade, I was going to an alternative school part-time. These were the years of the Twilight craze. Girls walked around clutching New Moon to their chests and gushing to our teacher, Jon, about the plot. He was a good sport. The kind of guy who would bring cookies in for the whole school and jokingly hand them out saying “one for you, one for me, one for you, one for me” until the plate on his desk was heaped with more cookies than a single person could even eat. Somehow, they always made their way back into gen pop by the end of the day.

There was one girl at this school that I wanted to be friends with desperately. She had thin, straight blond hair, glasses, and always wore pink. She was team Edward, not my team, but I forgave her. She was quiet and smart and beautiful and way too cool to hang out with me. I wore hand-me-downs and Merrell slip ons that my mom bought me. Emma wore fuzzy cardigans, shiny shoes, and little silver necklaces that probably came from Claire’s, but to me, they were decadent. It wasn’t just her personality, her clothes, and literary taste––she also had the rare cool mom. Emma’s mom had the most perfect ponytail, slung over one shoulder, effortlessly messy. I always wanted my ponytail to look like that. She was a waitress at a restaurant in Belfast, the restaurant with the coveted brownie sundae that I was only allowed on special occasions and only if I shared it with the whole table. In the yearbook that year I wrote my dream job: waitress.