prompts

1.     School/Work

When I was in high school, I had to begin to look at schools for college. I considered a few Toronto colleges, but I really wanted to go away for school. I wanted to be on my own, and even try living in residence if I could. I applied to Centennial College in Toronto, Mohawk College in Hamilton and Canadore College in North Bay, with my top choice being Canadore in North Bay. My grandparents were living in South River, so I had also considered living with them and making the 1.5 hour drive to North Bay for classes as needed.

I applied to the journalism programs and the tough part began. I had to write essay after essay to submit for assessments. For Centennial I wrote an essay on how WWF magazine writers had written with a level of bias that I found intriguing. For some reason I didn’t get accepted based on that essay, go figure.

For Mohawk I wrote and essay on my love of reading and writing. On how different writers had influenced my writing styles and how while I was in high school I was driven to take any and every English course I could get my hands on. I believe I was accepted, but I declined the offer…

For my essay to Canadore I wrote an essay on how my brother and I used music as a bridge between us. How my mother used to sit in the middle of the apartment, my brothers music blaring from one side, and mine from the other side. She had equated our music blaring at each other as a form of communication. This did get me accepted, and I was super happy…for about 2 weeks.

My grandmother passed away, and I was living with her and my grandfather. I was the only one who was single and I made the very difficult decision to decline the offer and I gave up my dream of writing. I got a job out of high school and jumped right into the work force. I worked for the same company for about 4 years, then I moved onto a less formal work field for a few years.

During this time, I continued to write, but never in the ‘journalistic’ field. I had always written fiction, all through high school, and I began to expand my writing subjects. By the time I was 30, I had written 4 novels, but I never submitted them for publication. A part of me wonders if I withheld them as a form of punishing myself for giving up on a long ago dream…