23

 When I was 23, I was working full-time in the residential program at a private school for children with autism. I thought I would take some time before I started taking classes again, but I took one class the spring after I moved to Boston (Including Learners with Special Needs with Elizabeth Fleming) and I was hooked. My workplace was also very generous with education. They offered a Masters program in special education (severe special needs) through Simmons College and one in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) through Northeastern University. Classes were on site and only 200 bucks out of pocket. The pay was crap, but the training and support was fantastic. The work could be stressful, but it helped that most of the people that worked as a level I or level II teacher were young women, like myself, who had recently finished their undergrad and moved to Boston. Whether it was laughing at the absurdities that came up in our work, helping dig each other's cars out after a shift in a snowstorm, going for margaritas across the street, going shopping, going to a Red Sox game, or going dancing in Boston, we were able to find humor and laughter in everything. Over the course of four years, we got to see each other go through first dates and heartbreaks, online dates, birthday celebrations, changes in position and changes in residence, and eventually, graduation, marriages, professional jobs, and even children. SHR for life! 

 

22

After I graduated college, I spent a weekend in Boston with my dad looking at apartments I found on Craigslist. Saw some decent places, but settled on a smaller apartment in Natick because I clicked especially with one of the roommates. She had one of those license plates that you pay extra for and the money goes to the Children's Hospital or something. I remember thinking "she must be old," because I couldn't fathom anyone my age having money or charity enough to purchase a specialty plate like that. Heartbreak! My boyfriend at the time cried when he left me in my new city, then broke up with me a month later.

I crashed my car and lost the boyfriend.

 

Got a new car and a cat.

 Found a friend for life in my roommate, Sara, who let me borrow her charity-licensed car while she walked to work until I was able to replace mine. Had good times at 113 South Main St., which was apparently referred to as “Animal House” by neighbors.

 

It seems like it was a lot longer, but it was really only seven months after I moved to Boston that I met my future husband. It was a cold and lonely winter when I started perusing sites like eharmony and match.com. I may have created profiles, but stopped when they wanted me to pay. So I mostly ended up on Craigslist, which was TOTALLY free! Despite what Steven likes to tell people, I was not looking in the personals or "casual encounters" sections. Anyway, he was the one who posted and all I did was reply to the young Southern boy who piqued my interest. We e-mailed witty banter back and forth for several weeks before we decided to meet in person. Another thing that Steven likes to say now is that I was dating seven different guys when I started dating him, which is not true. There were only two other guys. It was just strange because I had gone through a 6-7 month dry spell, then all of a sudden was asked on several different dates around the same time. All I did was say yes. Steven was the last one and I knew from our first date, the only one. He was funny and sweet over e-mail, and polite and cutely nervous in person. When I dared look into his eyes, I saw a genuine and kind soul. And he had a lot of smile lines, which is a really good thing. 

Awww

Flowers he sent to my work when I agreed to be his girlfriend.

 Road trip from Massachusetts to Georgia 3 months after we met.

21

My senior year of college was a turn-around point for me. I was in a good groove, had a great circle of friends, liked all the psychology classes I was taking, and generally stopped feeling sorry for myself.

 

Freshman room/dormmates all grown up!

 

This was not senior year, but you get the idea.

I should have more photos to include here, and I am fairly certain I have a spectacular collection of photos still on my Compaq Presario desktop. The monitor broke shortly after my senior year and I have been lugging it around with me every time I move. It's only been 8 years. One of these days I'll get the data off it.

So, senior year was awesome. I was accepted to study abroad in Spain for the fall semester and turned it down after a lot of soul searching. I think it was the best choice. I was able to enjoy all my "last times" and make major life decisions about what to do after graduation without the added pressure of not being in the country. I would be graduating with a Bachelor's degree in psychology. I had started college with the idea of completing a multi-language (Spanish, German, French) major with a global studies minor. I had a vague idea of working as a diplomat or in some international capacity. I took courses towards that, but the summer after my freshman year, I started working with adults with developmental disabilities in a residential program in my hometown. I worked with adults with "severe and profound mental retardation," who were in community-based homes, most as a result of deinstitutionalization. Some of the full-time staff had actually gone to the institutions to pick up residents when they were transferred out. The conditions were deplorable and people barely received basic care, much less any kind of therapy, treatment, or education. Most of them were totally removed from their families. I worked there every summer and vacation for four years and to see the end result, I often wondered how the outcomes would have changed for the people I worked with had they had better care earlier in life. Dun dun dun... I signed up to do some tutoring in a local special education classroom while at SLU and upon graduation, was leaning toward education, but was still a little undecided. I definitely felt I had to have some more work experience before I pursued additional schooling. I applied for a Student Travel leader position, Teach for America, and at a Boston-area school for children with autism. I had interviews with all three, but will only discuss the avenue I ultimately chose. I had never been to Boston before, so my brother was nice enough to make the long drive over and back with me for my interview at the New England Center for Children. I remember we stayed at the Red Roof Inn in Southborough and we ended up with a room with one bed, which we shared on opposite sides of a carefully constructed wall of pillows. We got terribly lost on the way back (like "hours driven out of the way" lost), but made it. I was impressed enough that back at SLU, I signed my contract, graduated college, and prepared to move to Boston.

 

20

I turned 20 shortly after my return from study abroad in Vienna. For my reintegration back to the States, I worked 60+ hours a week, ran 6 miles a day, and hit the gym 3-4 times a week. I ate insanely healthy and was in the best shape of my life. My transition back to college in the fall was a little more difficult. I played rugby and went to class, but stopped running, started going out 3-4 times a week, and gained probably 15 pounds - collateral damage that I referred to as a hang-over type effect of my study abroad, induced by life going on when I wasn't there to experience it. My junior year, I had some good times with good friends, but overall was not my best self.

 

... but at least I was skinny and had pretty hair?

 

On the plus side of things... I loved living in my sorority house junior and senior year of college. There is nothing quite like living with 20 of your best girlfriends – there is always someone to talk to, study with, laugh with, cry with, go out with, play practical jokes on, and generally just engage in silly antics.

 

 

 

                                                   

 

19

When I was 19, I was living in the Habitat for Humanity theme house (Habby House!) as a sophomore at SLU.

I was playing rugby and many of my teammates seemed to be part of the same sorority. Girls I volunteered with were in this sorority. Girls I had class with were in this sorority. Almost every awesome girl I met was a Chi Omega, so I became one, too. My father called it “the cult.” It wasn’t personal, but of course there are certain connotations and stereotypes when one thinks of sororities. Some things held true. We did have traditions and rules, theme parties, and twenty-ish girls living in one sorority house. We also had traditions and rules, theme parties, and twenty-ish girls living in one sorority house. What was different about Chi O was that the sorority truly embraced diversity, not only in the backgrounds of the girls who were initiated, but also in the talents, interests, and personalities. It was not cookie-cutter.

After pledging Chi O in the fall and just as I started to feel really in the “college” zone, with friends, activities, and budding romance, I had the opportunity to go abroad again, which of course I took. I spent the spring semester in Vienna, Austria (*note – not Australia, not Venice). I was more removed from my host family this time, and there was only a small group of girls on the program, a few of whom were not very nice. However, after bonding during a trip to Italy and subsequently spending a terrifying and uncomfortable night in a train station in Bologna, Erika Kelsey and I did not waste any more time getting our fun on. I reread my diary from this trip and it made me remember this crazy moment of serendipity we had. All five of us girls had planned to travel together for the weekend, and for some reason it was really stressful and I ended up missing the train. I was so sad and lonely unpacking my suitcase, thinking about being on my own for the whole weekend. I ended up going out to the grocery store later that day and who did I see there, but Erika, who had also missed the train. That weekend was our first bonding experience and I recorded this quote:

“A friend is someone who says what, you too? I thought I was the only one.”  

I don’t think I would have come out of that experience, which included the passing of my grandmother, like I did without her. I saw many places – Germany, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Holland, and a solo trip to Russia which included people smoking on our very small airplane, no safety instructions, being convinced I was on the wrong flight, and not being able to communicate anything because no one spoke English, nor I more than a few words of Russian.

At the airport, leaving for Vienna.

Dorfgastein, Austria. Where we spent our orientation.



Belvedere Palace, Vienna.



St. Stephens Cathedral, Vienna.

SLU students with the Weissgarbers. The husband and wife were the coordinators on the Viennese side and were simply amazing. This was an Austrian cooking night they hosted.

Prague?

Nymphenburg Palace, Munich, Germany.

Matryoshka dolls, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Kazan Cathedral, St. Petersburg, Russia.

18

The fall after I turned 18, I enrolled as a freshman at St. Lawrence University, a small liberal arts school in Canton, New York. It’s going to be hard to contain each of these next four years into a paragraph.

It's totally fine to bring stuffed animals to college with you

In my first year at SLU, I feel like I was half there, and half still involved in home friends/things. On the home side of things, I was dating a Swiss foreign exchange student who was a senior at my old high school. I went home some on the weekends (it was 2 1/2 hours away) and spent time with friends. This time included my old friend Jessa Vosburg-Allen literally dragging me into a piercing shop near Albany and holding my hand as I got my nose pierced. This was followed later by a way less scary navel piercing. Counting my ears, at one point I had 7 piercings and one tattoo. Bad ass.

 I had an awesome roommate and a friend for life in Shawna Weeks, who came all the way from Hawaii because she liked New York City once when she went on a school trip. She tolerated all my random bouts of hyperactivity, need for late night talks, sleep talking, and my first experiences with college parties.

My freshman year, 9/11 happened. I had the chance to volunteer at Ground Zero in December with a great group of people. It was so, so sad during the day, and then fun and exciting when we burned off steam at night. I remember that on the tables that were set up in the Salvation Army tent for the firemen, policemen, and other workers, there were baskets filled with cards and letters of support that were sent from all over the country. A lot were from children, and the men and women would come in for a rest and they would sit and read the cards and it would bring a smile to their faces. The little things do make a difference. 



The workers would stop and thank us for volunteering.
It was humbling, to say the least.

I explored a variety of different clubs and activities at SLU. When I started, I figured I wasn’t good enough at any sports to play in college, so I thought I was done with organized sports. But in the spring of my freshman year, I discovered rugby and ended up playing all four years. I don’t even think I could describe the culture that is rugby. It's like a family. To this day, when I think about being on the field, chasing someone down, and throwing down in the mud, my adrenaline starts pumping!