Here is what I know for sure:
I’m Anna. Seventeen, displaced, and restless. I live in a college town of 18,000 firmly nestled between a river’s bend and a cobalt sea. People here are uncomplicated, perpetually cycling through routines. Perhaps, over time, living on the coast has rendered them susceptible to the same forces controlling the ocean’s tides.
My childhood was luxurious, with the Museum of Natural History as my playground and the city’s legendary bagels, schmeared with cream cheese, as my breakfasts. My surroundings were constantly teeming with life and discoveries to be made. Moving to a small town at age seven felt like snapping off the lights, leaving the light of a mere candle with which to continue my explorations.
My young mind was a sponge, subconsciously absorbing and stashing away everyday moments. The tangy smell of yeast flooding my senses upon entering Barney Greengrass. The exhilaration felt each time I saw the City from a new perspective, the familiarity of its contour distorted by a single elevator ride.
I thought my foreignness would fade, but it seems to have done the opposite.
My mind inhibits me from filling this mold. Rather functioning in circles, it jerks, lurches, and dances unpredictably, constantly in search of new stimuli.
Instead of surviving off of answers, I live the questions.
Why become a slave to unwritten rules of social conformity, or follow a diet without awareness of its implications? Why stay anywhere solely because it’s the only place we know? These are questions I’ve lived, consumed, and explored in order to find my own answers. I am a vegan in a community of carnivores, a pair of platform combat boots in a sea of Uggs. I am the only one who went against the grain, risking everything to return to my city.
When I was younger, I was oblivious to others opinions of me. Now aware, I often find myself entertaining more “ifs”.
What if abnormality was the norm?
theartofmadeline
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