Avoid Dilution

***

"Caring passionately about something isn't against nature, and it isn't against human nature. It's what we're here to do.”  -- Annie Dillard

When I was in middle and high school, I often felt like I had to hide the fire inside of me. Intellectual curiosity, sadly, didn't seem a priority of my peers. To express love or to ask for a better world wasn't the norm. I spent too many idle years working retail jobs in a town run dry. I spent too many hours in a high school where students sat in lines and listened to teachers. I spent too many hours hiding my interests.

I could have gone to a State school, seen high school folks, & become a high school English teacher.
I could have gone to community college and saved SO MUCH MONEY -- hello, free ride.
I could have stayed in New York.

Instead, I stumbled my way to a small liberal arts school in Roanoke, Virginia: Hollins University.

The first year was overwhelming: surrounded with intelligent and creative women. I swear, that dining hall was as much a classroom as any other. Harder, too, because friends will push you to the edge of the cliff and ask you the toughest questions.

Hollins taught me many important lessons. One of the most important was to claim my passions, to feel deeply and understand why, and to act.

***