Yes!

As I sat in front of the admissions advisor, trying to select courses for my first year in college, I stared blankly right through her.

“Well?” She asked.

I continued to stare… blankly. Finally, patiently, she asked me again.

“Hope. What do you want to be?”

What do I want be? I’m 17-years old, just graduated from high school and every time I try to focus on my advisor, my boyfriend pops into my mind! Sure, I’ve thought about what I want to be when I grow up, but somehow I just can’t manage to narrow it down. It is a bit ridiculous to expect a 17-year old to choose what they want to do for the rest of their life!! I mean what the hell does a 17-year old even know about the types of jobs out there, let alone pick one that you’ll have to do for possibly the next 50 to 60 years!! What the hell did I know when the only work I had ever been exposed to was babysitting grimy children, hand washing dishes at a small local restaurant that specialized in fried chicken, and being a host at Denny’s. I could definitely check those jobs off of my list of what to do for the rest of my life. So I pondered for a moment. What would I like to do? Let’s see…

When I was 9, I took a summer school class and learned how to type. I loved the sound of the type writer keys when they hit the crisp white paper. I loved how the white paper looked when the black ink left a letter from the key that I just pressed. I would watch, mesmerized, as the silver arm of the typewriter reached out to the paper. And the harder I pressed the faster that arm would reach and the darker the letter would appear. As I continued to practice, I would try to time myself. How many times could I type the sentence, The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog in one minute. When I was able to type it four times in one minute, I was sure that I was destined to be a personal secretary.

When my mom bought me my first typewriter, I would type for hours. After many cold winter hours spent on this typewriter, I decided I could be a court recorder. I could be the girl typing fiercely in the corner as I had seen many times in the movies. Yes! I would be a court recorder because only someone that types as fast as I would be qualified.

But then along came spring and onto the shelf went the typewriter. That summer, I was 10 and just started Girl Scouts. That is where I met my best friend Tina. The town that we grew up in was small and surrounded by forest preserve. We would spend hours wandering through the forest picking wild berries. We would hike down to the creek and see who could find the coolest rock. One day I found it! It was the coolest rock ever. I saw it sticking out slightly from the creek bed. The sun reflected on it, and through the murky water I saw a flicker of light. I picked up the rock and my excitement was almost uncontainable! It was just larger than my palm. I held it up to the light and was dazzled by the gold sparkles that were exuberated from the sun. GOLD!

Quickly, I slid the rock in my pocket hiding it from Tina, for she would surely take it from me if she saw it. I mumbled something about having to go home and before I knew it I was running. I ran the whole mile home. Once in the driveway, I took the gold out of my pocket and examined it again. What would I do with all this gold? I would become a jeweler. I would transform it into beautiful pieces of fine jewelry!!

I was far away in my dream land imagining all of the pieces of jewelry I would make, when my sister quietly snuck up on me. “What do you got?” Startled, the rock slipped from my fingers and before I knew it my gold was halfway down the street with my sister. I knew better than to chase after her as I would never catch her, and if by some miracle I did catch her my chances of getting beat up by her with the rock were far greater than actually getting my gold rock back. So I did what I did best and wailed. Yelling and screaming and whining, until Mom came out to see what the ruckus was about. My sister finally came back with my rock and that was the moment I found out the tragic news. My dream of becoming a jeweler was shattered. My coolest rock ever wasn’t so cool after all. It wasn’t even gold. It was fool’s gold. I went to my room, disappointed and broken, and pouted. At five o’clock sharp, Mom yelled, “Come on kids, dinner is ready!” With a look and a wink announced, “Parmesan chicken and mashed potatoes.” My eyes lit up and the rock was forgotten. Somehow, Mom always knew how to make things right.

The following summer, we were into catching snakes. My sisters and I would get up early and pretend we were forest rangers out to catch the poisonous snakes before tourists were attacked by them. We would tramp through the forest lifting tree branches, rocks, and boulders searching for snakes in hiding. Until this morning, I was sure I was going to be a Forest Ranger.

On this particular morning, we had a very successful snake catching day and caught two garter snakes. My sister caught the first one and successfully trapped it in a bucket. When we found the second one, it was my turn to make the catch. My sister lifted the big rock and sure enough there was the snake. Curled up in its cool damp quarters, the snake started to slither as soon as the rock was lifted. I did what my sister taught me and quickly, but gently stepped on the snake close to the head, leaving enough room for my hand to grab the snake, but not enough room for the snake to move and bite me. Once I had the snake in my hand, my sister pushed the bucket toward me, but I was so happy that I actually caught the snake that I decided to carry it home.

Whistling, singing and skipping home, I hadn’t paid much attention to the snake in my hand whose tail had slithered around my arm and excreted a discharge all over me. I didn’t notice it until suddenly my nostrils were filled with a malodorous, pungent, musky scent, and as I looked at my arm I saw the yellowish-brown discharge smeared up my arm. I screamed and threw the snake, and with my arm held out away from my body, I ran home as fast as I could. Crying, disgusted, and gagging, I washed my arm. My sisters teased me for the rest of the day. “Hope you don’t get pooped on by the snake!!” It was this summer, when I was 11, that I was sure I was never going to be a Forest Ranger.

The year I turned 12, a stray cat came to our house. When my sisters and I saw this homeless, fat, Siamese cat, we felt sorry for her and gave her some milk. Milk turned into food and before we knew it the cat was home. We created a little cat sanctuary for her in the garage. A couple of old towels bunched up in the corner for her to lay and we officially named her… Well, we officially didn’t really name her anything except Kitty. Until, her bulge became bigger and bigger and we realized the fat cat wasn’t fat at all. Then her name became Mother Kitty.

Day by day Mother Kitty got bigger and bigger, her nipples popped out one by one and just when we were sure she was going to pop, Dad came in to gather us outside. It was time.

My sisters and I stared in awe as Mother Kitty pushed one, and then another, and another, and another. Licking each one clean as the next one came out. Six little kittens total. And then… what was that? It looked like a piece of salami! Did Mother Kitty just give birth to a piece of salami? I thought of all of the pieces of salami I had slipped her over the past couple of months. My palms began to sweat as I looked up at Dad, hoping he didn’t see that piece of salami. He would kill me if he found out I was feeding Mother Kitty salami for lunch. I tried to move closer to get a better look, but as fast as I snuck a glimpse Mother Kitty ate it. It must have been a good piece of salami. I made a mental note to start giving Mother Kitty bologna instead.

Apparently, Mother Kitty wasn’t the only cat that was busy that summer. A couple of weeks later, my sister came barreling into the yard on her bike nearly running over one of the kittens, yelling something I couldn’t comprehend. She brought us across the street to the neighbor’s yard where there were five kittens. We were oohing and aahing when the neighbor’s dog came up to the kittens. Roxie always wanted to get pregnant, but never could. In fact, she was in false pregnancy at that very moment! So when she saw those kittens, abandoned and alone, her motherly instinct took over. And there we stood as Roxie worked her way into those kittens, lay on her side and let them suck on her engorged nipples. It was a miracle. I was walking home from all of this excitement when I decided I was going to be a vet. Wanting to be a vet stayed with me for a couple of years until I turned 16.

At 16, I didn’t think too much about the next day, let alone the next year or my future. At 16, I was in love. Every living moment was spent with my boyfriend. The only thing I was thinking about was when would we be alone again? When could I rip every inch of his clothes off? That year I spent my time going to movies, to high school parties, driving down Archer Avenue, and going to the city. I wasn’t thinking about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. When the subject came up every one had an answer for me. Even my boyfriend knew what I should do, “Why don’t you be a nurse?” His mom was a nurse. I would just ignore him. I would ignore everyone.

So, there I sat at 17, trying to make the decision, but never came to one.

“Hope?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be a paralegal or a court reporter, a cook or a baker, a writer or a journalist, a private investigator or an FBI agent, or maybe I’ll be a vet.”

“Look Hope. You don’t have to decide what you want to be today. Today you only have to choose one of two pathways. The college only has two options – an associates in science or literature arts. Just pick one.”

It should have been a simple decision, but I was stuck. My interests were split exactly midway between the two, making even that simple decision complicated. I don’t remember how it was chosen (Eeny meeny, miny, moe, Do you want to write and paint or dissect a toad?), but somehow I picked the toad and registered for my first college courses.

Time went by fast. I was already midway into my third semester when I realized I had to choose a major! I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I didn’t have a clue and the stress was building. I started to panic. Thinking my schoolmates might have some bright ideas, I started asking them what they were going to school for.

In Anatomy, as we hovered over our dissected cat, just sliced open and intestines hanging out, I asked my lab partner Lizzy, “Lizzy, what are you doing this for? Are you going to be a doctor or something?”

“No, I’m going to be a nurse.” Lizzy replied. “If I can ever get in. I’ve applied three times already.”

“Really. Why’s it so hard to get in?”

“There are a ton of applicants. Last semester there were 250 applicants for 50 slots.”

“Wow. I didn’t realize so many people were trying to get into nursing school.”

“Yeah, I know. It really sucks. I don’t know what I am going to do if I don’t get in this semester. This is the last class that I need to get in.”

“Well, good luck!”

After putting the intestines back into our cat’s abdominal cavity and tucking our cat safely away, I hurried off to meet my study partner Randy. As we sat looking over our trigonometry homework, I asked him, “Randy, what are you going to school for?” And he replied. “I’m going to be a nurse.”

And I continued to ask, Julie and Jane, and Melissa, and Tammy, and Jennifer, and Tracy, and Kim and every time, I got the same answer. “I’m going to be a nurse.”

So it was then that I decided. Shit! If everyone else is going to be a nurse, then why not me? I figured if everyone wants to be a nurse, then being a nurse must be something great. Yes!! I would be a nurse too. I ran to my admissions advisor at once and just making the deadline for the ‘93 fall/winter application, I applied. With a sense of relief, I felt myself relax and as I exited the campus on the last day of the semester, I knew it would be a great summer.

July came, and with it, I received the letter. I stared at it for a long time, but I couldn’t open it. I placed it on my dresser, and there it sat for almost a week. Until my sister, finally, opened it for me and handed it to me. As I read the words, my heart sank.

Dear Hope,
We regret to inform you that you did not make it into the Nursing program for the ‘93 Fall semester…

I did not read the rest of the letter. I crumbled it up and threw it in the trash. I sat with my thoughts for awhile, trying to figure out why I was so disappointed and trying to cheer myself up. Hope. Don’t be so disappointed. You don’t even know if you want to be a nurse. You just applied because everyone else applied. Remember what Mom always says, “Hope, I named you Hope because with hope anything is a possibility. Remember that as you go through life. Anything is possible.”

Still, I could not deny my disappointment and I realized that my disappointment lay in the fact that once again my life had no direction, that I had to contemplate the possibility that I would never get into the nursing program, and the possibility that, once again, I would have to decide what to do with the rest of my life. So there I sat, at 18 years old, and as quickly as my life had direction, it now had come to a dead end, a sudden halt. A halt that I came to realize I had no control over. I could sulk and let it ruin my summer or I could go out and enjoy my summer. And that is what I decided to do. Have a fun summer and once again, not worry about what my future held.

I continued to screw around with my boyfriend and went to parties, and took day trips to the beach. And when we broke up, I found another boyfriend to focus my attention on. A new man to put my arms around and make out with for hours. A new distraction from my quest to find the path to my future. I was with him when I got the phone call. We were lying on my bed making out. We were getting pretty hot and heavy and I was contemplating in my head whether or not to take that next step. Yes, I wanted him. His hand wandered to my breast, as he pressed himself against me. I didn’t think I could resist much longer, so when the phone rang, our lips and tongues lingered in the kiss, while I disentangled myself from him.

“Hello.”

“Can I speak to Hope, please.”

“This is she.”

“This is Janice, calling from Community College of Nursing. The reason I am calling is an opening has become available in the Fall semester of the nursing program and your name was next on the list. Would you like the spot?”

YES!! There was a pause on the other end.

“Hope? If you need some ti…”

“YES!” I interrupted her not realizing that the previous YES had not actually come out of my mouth. “YES, of course I want it!” Oh my gosh, Yes!

YES!! And just like that I was in the program. Just like that, my life had a purpose, a path that would lead to a destination. And just like that as I turned to my new boyfriend and we kissed in excitement, I couldn’t contain myself any longer. And just like that, I had sex with my new boyfriend and Yes! became YES, YES, YES!!! OHHH, YES!