My Guardian Dog

I miss my dog. I miss her more than I let on as I go about my daily agenda, and the tiniest little things make me think about her. Yesterday, when setting out my tv tray, I paused before setting down my food, thinking my milk was still in the kitchen, so I would have to go back to get it. I was still used to thinking that I had to be careful where I left my food, thinking Charlie might come from the next room, jump up, and eat my supper before I had a chance to shout, "No!" When I get home from school, it takes me a moment to remember, no, I don't have to put the dog right out. There aren't any elderly puppy messes to pick up in the house. There's no blonde-turning-white hair on my favorite black sweater or scattered throughout the house. There's no clatter of the metal tags on her collar or clipping of her nails on the wooden floors as she walks through the house. My first dog, the only dog I've ever had, is gone.

Of course, I know it was her time. She was in pain. Remembering that last car ride with her is painful and brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. I remember petting down her fur in a desperate attempt to bring some comfort to the warm, loving creature who had brought me so much comfort throughout the years. I wanted to give back to her some of what she'd given me, but the truth was there in her small, weak frame. Charlie wasn't going to be with me much longer.

I think that was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Standing there in that small room, watching my dog lay on the metal table in front of me and waiting for the veterinarian to come back into the room will always be a memory hidden inside of my mind. But I have to focus on all the good times. I have to remember how she looked bounding through the snow with childlike joy even through her older years. I always called her my puppy. I don't believe that Charlie ever really knew her true age, and if she did, she never let it hold her back. She will always be a puppy at heart 

She's looking over me now. Although I can't see her or hold her to me or pet her head when life gets hard, I can still talk to her in my prayers and dreams. I can still think of her when I go out for a walk or refill her old water bowl for Boo. It's okay to miss her. It's okay for me to find myself in tears at times when I realize that she's gone. It just means that I loved her, and I did. I still do, and I always will.

A Quick Escape

When I was little, I would grab a book and hide in the tiny corner between our stereo and the red couch. I could sit quietly for what felt to me like hours without being found. As I got older, I continued to excel at hide and seek, but when I truly needed to find my escape, discovering new places my family wouldn't find me in proved to be much more difficult. I took to going outside on our swingset or on the hammock in the backyard to get away from my soooo annoying little brother, my pestering parents or my always nagging sister. In the winter, I'd tunnel into our snowbanks and create my own little hideaway. Finally, I got to the age where my headphones granted me my most effective escape. I could lose myself in a playlist of favorite songs no matter where I found myself, but even then it was easy for my siblings and parents to interrupt me and bring me back to "real life".

Now that my everyday stresses have become more pronounced than a lost toy or too many chores, every once and a while I find myself needing an out. In order to keep my thoughts contained inside my own head, I find my ipod and camera and pull on a pair of boots before waving goodbye to my family and going for a walk in my development.

After stepping outside today, I realized that there was over a foot of snow awaiting me in my driveway. I wasn't dissuaded, however. I just turned on my camera and began trudging my way through the snow. Stopping to snap pictures every few yards, I made my way through the development, my ipod resting in my jacket pocket.

Within ten minutes, I realized that I was completely relaxed. I was singing along with my favorite songs and aiming each of my pictures like the most gifted and artistic photographer to ever grace our Maine landscape. Everything that had seemed so stressful and aggravating a little while before didn't seem like such a big deal anymore. I'd found my escape again, and it was even better than a three square foot reading nook.

Walking home, I used up the last of my battery to snap pictures of my road. Although my entire neighborhood is beautiful, I found that it was my own neck of the woods that appealed most to me. Whether because it truly is the most stunning place in the world, or simply because it is the place I am most familiar with, my own home was the place I was most excited to capture. In the end, my one of my favorite pictures was taken after the sun went down, my footsteps leading me back home. Sometimes it requires simply taking a short break from your life in order to see just how beautiful it really is.

The Path I'm Starting Down

Today at school, we were asked a question that I, personally, have most likely been asked over a thousand times so far in my life. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Now that I am in high school, the nearness of this "growing up" is creeping its way into my thoughts. The question now enters my head as, "Now that you're almost there, what are you going to do?"

The first phrasing is much easier to answer than the second. When I was five, I was going to be a ballerina. When I turned seven, I planned to be a doctor in order to fix my Meme Freeman's bad knee. When I was eleven, I wanted to be a marine biologist. Although I am only fifteen, I've had my mind very much set on my most current goal and, although it is the most ambitious, I'll go ahead and say it. I want to become a professional actress. I'm not saying I want fame. I just want to go into a career based on the one passion in my life that brings me more joy than anything else.

But I know that this goal is much more spoken of than reached, and I find myself thinking often, "How on earth am I going to accomplish this?" After all, my older sister wanted to be an actress, and she found her way to accomplish this goal by attending a university and participating in a number of shows there. She's halfway through her freshman year and has already performed in two successful productions right here in Maine. But today in class, I was reminded of my real goal, one that, alright, I never actually forgot. One of my close friends, who knows all about my ambitious dreams, turned to me and smiled, "Tell her you're going to be on Broadway."

This is how I word my goals. I tell myself this sentence all the time out loud. Not as a question. Not as a hope. As a fact. "I am going to be on Broadway." I say to myself, and it always makes me smile. I'm not saying I plan to be the shining star with my face up there in lights, although I'd be lying if I said I didn't dream of it every so often. I just want to be in the ensemble. I want to be a part of that great dance number, that booming full chorus sound. I just want to feel my feet on the floor of that New York stage and the heat of the lights on a remarkable cast that I can call myself a part of.

But how? How can a girl from a small town, like me, get somewhere like that? I could get into some wonderful small-town community theater shows. I could probably even get a commercial gig or two. But Broadway?

This past year I've started making tiny amateur plans, telling people, "I'm going to go to a college within a bus distance or two of New York City. That way I can go to school and just keep auditioning until I get into something." Which sounds ambitious, but to a high school student, totally possible. But at the same time, there are hundreds of little tiny holes in this rough draft of a plan. Where will I get the money for bus tickets? How often will I go to New York? What will happen if I have to stay longer for extended auditions? How will I work, go to school, take academically challenging classes, go to auditions, study for tests, and get all my homework done in time? What if I meet someone? When will I spend time with friends? Do I plan to give up on writing? Am I planning to relax at all?

Breathing is good. Taking a minute to wrap my mind around those questions, the practical side of me shakes it's figurative little head. I'm sorry, Emma. It's just too much to handle. Stick with going to your college classes, finding a major. You're a smart girl. You can figure out another career path and have time for friends and have free time and have an amazing college experience. Part of me really wants that. Part of me can see a life for me in that, a really happy, fulfilled life that would lead to many opportunities.

But the other part of me is so gosh darn stubborn, and it wants me to just try this crazy plan. I don't want to give up. I don't want to look back years from now and say, "Oh! Why did you give up then? You didn't even fight!" It's impractical, yes. It may be a complete waste of my achievements in math and science, but (sorry Dad!) I don't want to be a mathematician or a scientist. I want to be an actress. I know it's important to have backup plans, and, believe me, I've got a bucket of them, but I'm not caving in to the worries, complaints, or adult tisks just yet.

Who knows, maybe I'll have a change of heart senior year and pursue Backup Plan #3: become a teacher. There may be hope for me yet. But for now I have my course set on this crazy, ambitious idea of mine, and since Plan #1 has always been simply to follow my heart, I've got myself headed in just the right direction.