The Longest Time
One
It was two days past my twentieth birthday when I woke up and left. I had a million reasons to leave, but the most important one was the overwhelming suffocation I felt living in my small prairie city. I was born in Edmonton, I'd grown up in Edmonton, and if I didn't get out, I'd die in Edmonton. I started planning my great escape when I was twelve. I'd lie in bed at night and think of all the things I'd rather be doing and all the places I'd rather be. Looking back, it was a bit masochistic because as a twelve year old there was obviously no place I could escape to. I was far too reasonable a child to become a runaway and instead bided my time. At fifteen I watched enviously as my older sister relocated to Toronto leaving me behind with half of her vinyl collection and a Pentax K1000 film camera.
"I promise one day you'll get your break," she whispered in my ear as she said goodbye. "But in the meantime try to see things through everyone else's eyes. ," she slipped three canisters of film in my pocket and kissed my cheek. Always the dramatic, it was only fitting that she leave on a cryptic but encouraging note. If my life were an oscar-winning film that would have been the last time I saw my older sister, but in reality she called two days later and came home for Christmas ever year, usually with a new passion and hairstyle.
When she left I suddenly became the oldest of the three -almost four- remaining children in the house, and was expected to be of some help to my then freshly pregnant mother. Instead I was more preoccupied with seeing things through the eyes of the Pentax than making her life easier. I was fifteen and already had a 'places to go' list longer than my arm. I tried to do everything right in high school, get good grades, get a part time job, date the popular boys, but instead I followed in my sister's footsteps and got less than desirable grades in everything except art, lost every job I got, and dated an incredibly nerdy but undeniably sweet boy with wildly curly hair and a stutter. As it turned out, neither my sister nor I could live up to the standard set by mainstream media, the high standard of normality and achievement. But while my peers were doing things 'right' I was building my portfolio and getting the partying out of my system. So what if it took me an extra year to actually get my diploma.
Four months before my twentieth birthday I sat in my parents basement on the phone with my sister complaining about anything and everything. The two most common topics were our four year old sister- who had just coloured all over the very expensive prints I was trying to sell, and the feeling I had that I was going nowhere in life.
"Would you just move out already?" She sighed on the other end of the line. "No offense Colbie, but you're starting to sound like a child."
"Move out and do what exactly?" I was rolling my eyes even if she couldn't see me.
"Oh I don't, maybe do some of the things you keep saying you want to do?"
"Mallory!" I whined, dangerously close to stomping my foot too. "It's not that easy, I can't just do those things, I have to prepare for them."
"No, I'm pretty sure it is that easy, you're just a pansy. Go do something with your life or stop complaining." My sister of infinite wisdom had struck a cord inside me and I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry or laugh.
"What should I do?" I whimpered, definitely closer to crying.
"Check your email in twenty minutes," and she hung up.
Our conversation left me frustrated and confused, but twenty minutes later I did as I was told and opened my inbox to find five emails from Mallory O'Connor, a.k.a my new life coach. Each email had a bullshit inspirational quote and the link to a different school. Four of them were art and photography programs and one a mortuary program, a long running inside joke between us that one of us should join the funeral industry just to bother my parents. None of the schools where within three-hundred kilometers of my hometown, Montreal, New York, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Over the next week I sent applications to the four art programs and firmly reminded myself that my chances of getting in were slim to none. And slim were the results, I quickly received rejections from New York and Montreal. I decided to forget about Chicago and Pittsburgh and focus on my promising career at the record store. Between that and my lucrative babysitting business, and by lucrative I mean I babysat on weekends for two families with two kids a piece, I had saved a decent chunk of change. It wasn't enough to quit my job and move to Mexico, but it was something. Two months after I sent the application I received the promising 'thick envelope', inside was my acceptance letter to Carnegie Mellon and instructions on how to get a student visa. I went from hopeless and suffocated, to overjoyed and slightly terrified in a matter of weeks. I was doing what I'd been dreaming about my whole life and I spent the week before my departure crying in every room of my childhood home.
Mallory and I packed up my Honda Civic and prepared to make the 3,300 km drive to Pittsburgh. Before my final goodbye, we gathered the family- my parents, two younger sisters, and kid brother- and took the picture that I would have framed on my nightstand for the next three years. We looked like Canada's answer to the Weasley family. Each one of us with a different shade of red hair but the same pale skin and freckles. My parents with their arms around each other, four year old Aoife scowling at the camera while Jacob tried to hold up 'bunny ears' behind Fallon's head. Mallory and I were on the ends, the first two to leave the nest and smiling the widest.
After the first day, where I cried so hard I couldn't drive, we spent the trip laughing and singing loudly. We traded off driving and playing DJ every few hours. Each day guaranteed two things: one, that I would take close to one hundred pictures, and two, that we would spent hours serenading each other to Billy Joel, the anthem to our journey. Four days later we pulled up to my new home, a one bedroom apartment near the university campus. The apartment wasn't exactly five star accommodations but it came with some furnishings and was affordable. Between student loans, my savings, and the job I hoped to acquire immediately I would be able to survive. We unpacked my record player first and spent our last two days together dancing around and trying to make the cramped apartment welcoming. We hung up framed prints of my favourite photographs, bought lime green plates and bowels, and managed to assemble a desk without hurting ourselves. Slowly, it felt like a place I could find myself. Dropping Mallory off at the airport left me unconsolable and lost. Yes I had GPS to get home, but I had no idea what to do with myself. For the first time in my life I had no one banging on my door, or asking me to do something. I was free, but I was lonely. I drove around the unfamiliar city until the sun had set, then headed back to my new, empty home. With the door locked behind me I dropped to the floor and crumpled into a sobbing mess. A loud banging on the wall told me my neighbours weren't the sympathetic type and I headed to the shower where I could cry in peace. As I walked passed the record player in the corner of the living room I saw a shiny red bow. It was stuck to an album I'd had on the top of my list for years: Billy Joel An Innocent Man. Next to it a note, written in my sister's loopy handwriting.
Colbie,
"I don't care what consequence it brings
I have been a fool for lesser things "
I'm so proud of you. Congratulations on living your life. I'll be here when you need me.
xoxo Mallory
"I promise one day you'll get your break," she whispered in my ear as she said goodbye. "But in the meantime try to see things through everyone else's eyes. ," she slipped three canisters of film in my pocket and kissed my cheek. Always the dramatic, it was only fitting that she leave on a cryptic but encouraging note. If my life were an oscar-winning film that would have been the last time I saw my older sister, but in reality she called two days later and came home for Christmas ever year, usually with a new passion and hairstyle.
When she left I suddenly became the oldest of the three -almost four- remaining children in the house, and was expected to be of some help to my then freshly pregnant mother. Instead I was more preoccupied with seeing things through the eyes of the Pentax than making her life easier. I was fifteen and already had a 'places to go' list longer than my arm. I tried to do everything right in high school, get good grades, get a part time job, date the popular boys, but instead I followed in my sister's footsteps and got less than desirable grades in everything except art, lost every job I got, and dated an incredibly nerdy but undeniably sweet boy with wildly curly hair and a stutter. As it turned out, neither my sister nor I could live up to the standard set by mainstream media, the high standard of normality and achievement. But while my peers were doing things 'right' I was building my portfolio and getting the partying out of my system. So what if it took me an extra year to actually get my diploma.
Four months before my twentieth birthday I sat in my parents basement on the phone with my sister complaining about anything and everything. The two most common topics were our four year old sister- who had just coloured all over the very expensive prints I was trying to sell, and the feeling I had that I was going nowhere in life.
"Would you just move out already?" She sighed on the other end of the line. "No offense Colbie, but you're starting to sound like a child."
"Move out and do what exactly?" I was rolling my eyes even if she couldn't see me.
"Oh I don't, maybe do some of the things you keep saying you want to do?"
"Mallory!" I whined, dangerously close to stomping my foot too. "It's not that easy, I can't just do those things, I have to prepare for them."
"No, I'm pretty sure it is that easy, you're just a pansy. Go do something with your life or stop complaining." My sister of infinite wisdom had struck a cord inside me and I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry or laugh.
"What should I do?" I whimpered, definitely closer to crying.
"Check your email in twenty minutes," and she hung up.
Our conversation left me frustrated and confused, but twenty minutes later I did as I was told and opened my inbox to find five emails from Mallory O'Connor, a.k.a my new life coach. Each email had a bullshit inspirational quote and the link to a different school. Four of them were art and photography programs and one a mortuary program, a long running inside joke between us that one of us should join the funeral industry just to bother my parents. None of the schools where within three-hundred kilometers of my hometown, Montreal, New York, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Over the next week I sent applications to the four art programs and firmly reminded myself that my chances of getting in were slim to none. And slim were the results, I quickly received rejections from New York and Montreal. I decided to forget about Chicago and Pittsburgh and focus on my promising career at the record store. Between that and my lucrative babysitting business, and by lucrative I mean I babysat on weekends for two families with two kids a piece, I had saved a decent chunk of change. It wasn't enough to quit my job and move to Mexico, but it was something. Two months after I sent the application I received the promising 'thick envelope', inside was my acceptance letter to Carnegie Mellon and instructions on how to get a student visa. I went from hopeless and suffocated, to overjoyed and slightly terrified in a matter of weeks. I was doing what I'd been dreaming about my whole life and I spent the week before my departure crying in every room of my childhood home.
Mallory and I packed up my Honda Civic and prepared to make the 3,300 km drive to Pittsburgh. Before my final goodbye, we gathered the family- my parents, two younger sisters, and kid brother- and took the picture that I would have framed on my nightstand for the next three years. We looked like Canada's answer to the Weasley family. Each one of us with a different shade of red hair but the same pale skin and freckles. My parents with their arms around each other, four year old Aoife scowling at the camera while Jacob tried to hold up 'bunny ears' behind Fallon's head. Mallory and I were on the ends, the first two to leave the nest and smiling the widest.
After the first day, where I cried so hard I couldn't drive, we spent the trip laughing and singing loudly. We traded off driving and playing DJ every few hours. Each day guaranteed two things: one, that I would take close to one hundred pictures, and two, that we would spent hours serenading each other to Billy Joel, the anthem to our journey. Four days later we pulled up to my new home, a one bedroom apartment near the university campus. The apartment wasn't exactly five star accommodations but it came with some furnishings and was affordable. Between student loans, my savings, and the job I hoped to acquire immediately I would be able to survive. We unpacked my record player first and spent our last two days together dancing around and trying to make the cramped apartment welcoming. We hung up framed prints of my favourite photographs, bought lime green plates and bowels, and managed to assemble a desk without hurting ourselves. Slowly, it felt like a place I could find myself. Dropping Mallory off at the airport left me unconsolable and lost. Yes I had GPS to get home, but I had no idea what to do with myself. For the first time in my life I had no one banging on my door, or asking me to do something. I was free, but I was lonely. I drove around the unfamiliar city until the sun had set, then headed back to my new, empty home. With the door locked behind me I dropped to the floor and crumpled into a sobbing mess. A loud banging on the wall told me my neighbours weren't the sympathetic type and I headed to the shower where I could cry in peace. As I walked passed the record player in the corner of the living room I saw a shiny red bow. It was stuck to an album I'd had on the top of my list for years: Billy Joel An Innocent Man. Next to it a note, written in my sister's loopy handwriting.
Colbie,
"I don't care what consequence it brings
I have been a fool for lesser things "
I'm so proud of you. Congratulations on living your life. I'll be here when you need me.
xoxo Mallory
Notes
I have no idea what inspired me to start a second story...But worry not I haven't forgotten Stay, Stay Stay, I will be working on both to the best of my abilities. I just wanted something to work on in addition.
Please let me know what you think, I know it's off to a bit of a slow start but it will of course pick up :)
xx- T
WOop
2/9/18