Week 5 : Adult Memior

Is this really what it's come to? Is this really how I'm living my life? I wait and I drift; day after day until I find something that really matters. I've found myself searching in ridiculous places for inspiration. Even if it only lasts a fleeting second and then it goes away, it's still that one moment of feeling so very alive. For me, that feeling can quickly go away. Nothing seems to make it stay. Nothing seems to make the loneliness go away.
I'm sitting alone in my car, in a parking lot of a gas station, deciding if I want to do this or not.
I just think to myself 'fuck it'.
This is something I was told never to do. This was something I swore to myself I would never do. But because I feel the need to punish myself, I do it anyways. In these moments where I realize I'm in control of myself, I do it to prove just that.


I'm sitting in my car a minute after I did it, and I have a pack of menthol cigarettes in my hand. Marlboros. I used some of my hard-earned, 3 job having, 15 hour a day working money on a pack of smokes. I felt I deserved it.
To someone else, this probably isn't a big deal. To someone else, this is probably nothing. But everyone saw me as this pleasant little girl. I grew up always being a pleasant kid. I cried desperately the first time I got a detention. I never talked back to teachers. I never even got kicked out of school.
I had smoked before; at keg parties or the occasional cigar. I was 19, it was perfectly legal. Then why did this feel like such a rush?
Probably because no one thought they'd see a cigarette hanging from the mouth of the wholesome girl who used to bag their groceries with a smile.


Later while I was driving, a lit Marlboro in between my fingers, I suppressed tears as I thought about my life. I smoked and I inhaled, and I relaxed the tears away.
I lifted my phone to my eyes and checked. Zero messages. Zero anything.
Is that any big of a surprise? No one exactly ever goes out of their way to talk to me. I usually just drive alone like this; a car full of thoughts bouncing off one another. My phone stays silent.
How many nights have I spent time staring at a phone that never rings?
I smoke and inhale again, the sunset in the rear view catching my eye.
The emotional roller coaster that is my mind has almost always been made peaceful by the rising sun or the setting sun. For me, it's always been the sign of new things to come. New things have always given me hope, because that means the feelings can be left behind.
Unlike the scene in a rear view mirror, life's problems aren't as easy to escape.
I smoked the cigarette until it was gone and then abruptly lit another one. I hated how it made my mouth taste, and I didn't even wanna think of how it made my hair smell.
I gripped the steering wheel and thought about why I chose this to silently rebel. I chose smoking. Something that, since day one of consuming second-hand smoke from my mother, I decided that smoking was something I would never do.
But it was something in my reach. It was something I could do and no one ever had to know. It's sort of me giving the finger to everyone who loves me and everyone who has wronged me. It's self-destructive. It's risky. And above all, it's basically pointless. So for the duration of this drive, I smoke.
Normally, something like this would depress me. It was, yet another, realization that promises are almost never kept, and plans are made to be broken. I swore I'd never do this. I'd never smoke. But every time I looked in the mirror, it was another reminder of all the plans that had gone wrong. Those few extra pounds I put on and swore I'd lose, they're still there, staring at me. The tattoo I had planned and dreamed of getting; the non-inked skin was still there to remind me that I chickened out. My short fingernails are still there; I've never kicked the habit of biting them, but I've tried at least a dozen times.
These are all things I've failed at. These are all things I did not, could not, or would not do.
I think about all of this while I drive and while I smoke. It made me feel a little bit more alive then I did before.   For a reason I couldn't explain, that little secret I had to myself, made me feel human.
I flicked the cigarette butt out the window and continued on driving down the winding Route 2 I had taken countless times. My thoughts were whirling as I fumbled for a piece of gum in my purse.
Those were the only two I smoked as I drove home to Waite on that warm summer day.



A few weeks later, I was working at Border's. It was a busy, hectic and hot day, and for some reason, the person who made the schedule hated me that day and made me work all by myself. I'm sure I looked like a crazy woman as I ran from one side of the kitchen to the other as I threw things together. I had no help and was on my own all day. But somehow, I was getting costumers' orders out in time.
I was frazzled, sweating, tired and in need of a nice long nap when an old man came up to the cash register to order something.
"Can I help you?" I said with as much of a smile as I could muster.
His face was weathered but very warm and welcoming. He peered up at me and grinned. He leaned on his cane and pushed his glasses up his nose as he pointed at my necklace. "Are you a photographer?"
My necklace was a simple chain with a tiny, old-fashioned looking camera pendant dangling from it. I put my hand to it and smiled, "Well, I'm working on it. I hope to be one someday. It's what I love to do."
The man looked up at me and smiled broadly, his eyes bright as he winked, "Wrong answer, my dear."
I laughed, "What do you mean?"
He pointed at my necklace and said, "I asked if you were a photographer. You should have simply said 'yes'. Because you are." He paused and then continued,  "You are a photographer, my dear."
At that point in time, I had gone through life feeling as if no one could read me like I had wanted them to. I was looking for answers from people who could not give them to. But after having a little bit of conversation with this old man and handing him his peppermint tea and oatmeal cookie, I realized that I was very easily read by a stranger.
And what he said to me was exactly what I needed to hear.

I woke up the next morning, for some strange reason with a smile on my face.
I was still working 3 jobs and 15 hour days. I worked 6 days a week on a good week, and my feet always hurt. It was the middle of summer, my first summer away from home, and I had only gone swimming a few times and really had done nothing exciting.
But for some reason, I still had a smile when I woke up.
The sun came through my window that morning. My cat was snoozing at my feet, and I lifted my arms to stretch, my tired bones cracking as I awoke.
For a minute or two, I lay in bed. My walls are covered and scattered with pictures of smiling faces. My tassels from both my preschool and my high school graduation. Pictures with all of my closest friends. I had almost every ticket stub from every concert, movie and show I had seen in the past two years. A giant purpledream catcher Cindy and Todd got me as a gift when they went on a trip. I like to keep everything and hang it on my walls, and my overflowing bulletin board showed that.
It was then, in the morning light, that I had a realization.
As a person, I'm always looking for more depth. I'm always searching for another thing to put on my list. Not necessarily a bucket list, but a list of things that make me who I am. Make me human. Sometimes I feel as though everyone in life is a list. Every person has a list of things that make them interesting. So I'm always off searching for that ultimate thing to put on my list. That one thing that'll make my list stand out.
I'm always searching for that hidden piece of wonderment.
I was always so concerned about the list. I was always so concerned about those little secrets that made more human, that made me more complex.
But in all of these pictures, I had a smile on my face. Every item that decorated my wall represented a happy memory. They all were a symbol for a time that was good.
Just like those moments when I smoked the cigarettes and felt so alive, these happy moments were also fleeting. And they felt even better then the cigarettes.
I stood up quickly and found that same pack of menthol Marlboros that had been sitting on my cluttered desk for weeks. I had never smoked any more then those two I smoked that day. I hadn't even touched them. I tossed them there and forgot about them. For some reason, they lost their appeal right after I smoked them.
Sort of like many things that don't work out in life, that idea turned out to be not what I wanted.
I picked them up and threw them into my trash can. I quickly realized how little I needed them to make my life more interesting. While I was looking for things to put on my list, I had forgotten about the list I already had.
And you know what... My list was already pretty damn good.



Holliann Bergin 
daughter, good friend to plenty, seen too many movies, thinks too much, is afraid of spiders and snakes, doesn't like snowstorms, reads a lot, has glasses, Star Wars and comic book fan, loves to drive, photographer, writer, loves adventure, loves the outdoors, loves life.