A day in the life of a perky Funeral Home Administrative Assistant

I work at a Funeral Home. When I got the call for the interview a year ago, I was confused. I didn't remember applying for a job with a funeral home. I had only applied for a job as an administrative assistant. Oh, wait. Do funeral homes have Administrative Assistants? Turns out they do. And somehow, I am now one of them.

It's been good. I'm careful not to sound too perky when I answer the phone. I do my best to intimidate the female version of Frankenstein's voice. It's an art really to be able to draw out your vowels and find that perfectly respectful low pitch. Normally, it's "dead" and I spend a lot of time building my wedding boards on Pinterest. I faithfully have given up every other weekend for this job, and I've fallen into a comfortable lull. Love my coworkers. Love my job.

And then (enter menacing music) I agreed to fill in multiple extra days during the summer. This leads to today, the WORST DAY in human existence of Administrative Assisting. Come on, Administrative Assistants. How many of you can say that you've seen 4 dead bodies before you finished your morning coffee.

I feel like no one understands what we do - or appreciates it. So today I'm going to share with you my day. Just one day. And maybe you'll understand.

I'm filling in at a location that is completely new to me. This also means I don't know any of the directors or where anything is located in the office. It's 8 a.m. and I've come in early with a McMuffin and Hashbrown and home-brewed coffee in a Starbucks mug. I'm here early so I can get peacefully acquainted with the office; find my office, get logged in, find where they keep the paper, the books, the camera, the thumb drive, etc. The manager greets me and at my request he shows me around the funeral home. As he quickly takes me from room to room, I feel like I have entered a new Super Walmart. I peek in the rooms and can see that instead of the normal 10 or so flowers, there are about 35 flowers. This will be one of my jobs to take a picture of each flower, write down who it's from, and then print those pictures for all four families that are having services today. When I finally sit at my own desk, I'm relieved to have a place to sit still and hopefully get some peace. Not so. I ask the manager where the thumb drive is. He doesn't know. I log in and all of my defaults are messed up. Everything is printing wrong and all the wrong printers are hooked up. My desk is right by a door where grieving families enter and want you to give them a tour of the bathrooms and visitation rooms. The directors swarm in and out with orders of service, changes to memorial books, and "new flower picture needs" -- all which need to be done STAT. This alone takes my full attention.

Then I check my email to see what needs to be done. Immediately I find out that we are short-staffed. There's just two of us Administrative Assistants where there are normally three. And the girl who is filling in with me comes in with a pinched eyebrow and a worried purse of her lips. She is brand new. She immediately skips my attempt at friendly introduction and to my horror I realize she knows NOTHING. I quickly realize that I can't ask questions. No one knows the answer. Meanwhile, new girl asks me to come over to her computer repeatedly because she "can't find a clipart image" and "doesn't know how to download a picture from an email".

Meanwhile, the phones are ringing off the hook. And each time I answer, as much as I want to snap, I need to answer in my slow, quiet Frankenstein voice and have "all the time in the world" to give directions to someone who "might be coming from the north or the south". Meanwhile, I hear a director outside my door promising a family that I will whip together a memory video for them before the visitation at 2:00. Memory videos easily take 2 to 4 hours. This promise was made around 11 a.m. As I'm juggling that video form request, I'm quickly realizing that all the work that was supposed to be done for today's services has not been done. With five minutes to spare, I'm printing 4 books (manually changing the printer location and page pull for every page), CDs, Directors Cards, Double-sided Clergy cards, obituary pages, and I go out and take a picture of every flower and print them all. Then the printer runs out of ink. No one knows where the cartridge is. Someone calls and wants to talk to my manager "now" and when I ask for help everyone says to find someone else. In the meantime, this old man comes in - I can only assume he's a coworker - and he says "You printed this wrong. It needs to be fixed now."

I look at it. I didn't print it wrong. Somebody else did. Doesn't matter - it's got to be fixed. I try to sound cheerful as I promise to fix it as soon as I finish with every other stat request. Then I'm trying to load the video on the player. It works at my location, but here the system needs to be re-updated and it keeps saying that Firewall is blocking it. I'm told to call Valerie who tells me to call Steve who doesn't answer. So, once again, I try to figure it out. I call the front desk and ask what player is being used (so I don't mess up any video). He says he doesn't know but he doesn't think any of the other players are being used. So I try to load the player again. Suddenly the same old guy comes in practically screaming that I've messed up the video for a family who's in the middle of visitation. Confused, I'm like, "You said the players were free." He insists, "No I didn't. I said except for the "H" family." What. Yeah, after you hung up the phone? Whatever. Let me try to fix it. The family comes in and says, "Hey the video's messed up." Long story short, that guy takes off and I never see him again. Turns out it wasn't something I did - it was just the sound wasn't working right. But I spent a good 30 minutes in a closet with equipment I didn't understand trying to fix something that wasn't broken. In the meantime the owner of the funeral home finds me and tries to help me and he is equally confused because he needs me to be working on the other video and not this one.

I get back to my desk and an entirely different director places a brand new file of information on my desk and says he needs me to write two obituaries, work up a DC proof, enter information in TDAW, and upload all the info to Greenville News and our website. The family is waiting for me to do this.

Where is the new girl? She's disappeared for 5 hours to help some families with their music. Yeah, so I'm answering the phones. Trying to handle all these technical hiccups. Writing obituaries and completing an entire families every request. FEELING INCOMPETENT. And knowing everyone else is just as lost as I am. By the time I finally finish that family, they realized they didn't have enough money so I had to go back through and cancel everything I'd done.

I needed to update the First List so everyone can see everything. In the meantime I'm not at my normal desk so I'm calling over at least 5 times to another location to try to get my logins. Finally, the new girl comes back and she swears I messed up her computer because her printer isn't defaulting correct anymore. She is like a "silent angry" and sighs a ton for my benefit. The owner of the building plops down and I feel like I need to be on my best behavior.

A director comes in and just looks ticked at life. She says to me, "How old are you?" "23." "Are you married? Kids?" "No." "Oh. What's your real job?" "I'm a student." "Oh." End of conversation.

The best part of this day? I'm going back over the little bit of work the new girl did. You know, because I finally got breathing time and wanted to make sure everything is taken care of. Because I'm thorough. Quickly, I realize she has not submitted the obituary for the family she worked with this morning and that we have missed the deadline. When I asked her and the director about it, she turns to me and says that she left her password on her desk for me to download the picture that was needed for the obituary. Apparently that was the picture she couldn't download from her email. She never breathed one word about a password or that she was not meeting a deadline because she needed that picture. I looked at it later and she discovered she had downloaded it - she just didn't know where. I found it. Fixed it. And instead of a thank you, she says to me, "Yeah, I wish you had seen the password and downloaded that so you could have met the deadline." To the director I hear her say, "Andrea was supposed to do that for me. I guess she had a mess up of communication."

WHAT. Yeah. This was the day from heck. Silver lining? SO glad it's over. SO glad God helped me keep my cool. Now for some Desperate Housewives reruns and some kind of banana dessert. :)

Running for my Life

There's nothing like a good hard run. As your feet pound away against the dirt, the road, the hills, they pound away from life. And even as they conquer the air, they take you down a road of intriguing memories. For once, instead of keeping my mind on what Andrew's doing now, or my internship, or my work, or my hulu queue, I close my eyes and open them to beautiful, beautiful memories.

I run past the mailbox and I smell a campfire burning. My eyes close on their own and instantly I'm 15 again. I'm staring into the fire pit, surrounded by the peace of my Dad's contentment, my mom snuggled in a blanket next to him, and my brother only coming to life to throw something at me. I stare into the fire, wondering where he is....determined to believe that he must be in the little group of boys that I know at the time. False. SO false.

I open my eyes and run past a neck of trees that are covered in rich green ivy and vines. The smell of the campfire falls behind me and instead I'm greeted with the smell of wildflowers along the valley. My eyes close and where am I? I'm 14 and I'm picking from an easy field of can-spread Martha Stewart wildflowers. I loved making little bouquets every day for the kitchen table.

I run for another 10 minutes or so and as I round back, I default to thinking about Andrew, as I often do. I pray for him and wonder what he's doing. I wish so badly that we were already married. And then as I leapt over an extra rocky patch, I realized how quickly this whole last year has gone. And it hit me that before I know it, it will be June of next year. And, Lord willing, I'll be with him and wishing that time would slow down. As I slow down to a jog and feel long grass tickle my ankles as I brush by, I'm suddenly overwhelmed with thanks to God for now and for the sweet promise of a future. If it weren't for God, I wouldn't have gotten to know Andrew. And if it weren't for God, I wouldn't have this moment. We never know how much longer we have. I want to make the most of the time I have.

As my feet find my home stretch again, I look out on the valley and stop running. I stretch my calves, embrace one arm at a time, and then as I'm reaching for the sky, my eyes close and I fly back in time. I don't know how young I was. I truly believe this may be my first memory of my childhood home in Mount Caramel, Kentucky. I don't know if I got this when I lived there at age 2 or if it came to me later when I visited in elementary. But I'd forgotten about this memory. Literally ALL growing up was just my idea of true peace and beauty and happiness. I'm looking in on the memory and I don't know what exactly I'm seeing. I'm looking at a grown up version of myself. I'm wearing a long summer white dress and I'm happy. I'm standing on a hill, looking out over a valley where the sun is setting. The view before me is a hazy golden sky, so I assume it's a sunset. And the big thing I see is a wooden white bench hanging from a tree. I never swing in it. But in my idea, it would be the greatest bliss to sit on it and swing out from the hill over nothingness. It would be like flying.

So I don't know WHERE that memory comes from. I don't know if my mind created it at a young age and it just stuck with me for years, but I do know that when I opened my eyes on the valley here, I thought with a rush - I am that girl. This is me now. I'm happy. I'm at peace. God has given me everything I need.

I'm thankful that God allows someone so small and insignificant to run with defiance against life, each foot pounding in front of me, each frustration torn into the gravel. And then he lets me come to the end of my run exhausted, broken and filled with renewed thankfulness for his many gifts and mercies.

I am so small and my God is so big. There's nothing my God cannot do. :)

De ja Vu Relationship

I think of him. I look over. He's not there. Suddenly I freeze. Everything about this moment--the traffic whizzing by my car, the sound of the air conditioning, my hand poised over the radio knob, my thoughts racing, my destination--is the same as some time before in my life. I can't put my finger on a particular time. All I know is that I have been here before. I've experienced this exact set of random combinations. And I  have to assume it's de ja vu.

But then the other day I got to thinking. De ja vu is such a pat way of explaining eerie coincidences. We assume we have done a similar thing before and think nothing more of the chill of familiarity. But what if we truly have already experienced this life before? What if Andrew and I have already married and had children and grown old together? What if somehow God sent us back to view our lives and in that moment our future and present conscious connect.

It's romantic thinking on my part. But how else can I describe the powerful feelings I have for Andrew?

I know it's crazy. But just follow this train of thought for a crazy second. What if some couples have incredible chemistry because in a future timeline they have already slept together? They wouldn't remember it because it hasn't happened for them yet, but their conscious is already aware of what "is" there down the road. What if for the same reason God allows feelings of love to grow, because the conscious already senses what great things are to come. And then in those little moments when he smiles over at you, or a neighborhood dog barks, or you move one step closer to each other- you get de ja vu because you sense you are fulfilling a future that already knows you.

I can definitely say that I had de ja vu moments in past failed relationships. Not because my future and past conscious collided. Nope. Just because I realized that I was making the same mistakes over and over. It was a constant roller coaster of infatuation, breaking up, and then regret over the whole relationship. Looking back, I recognize that a lot of that roller coaster was me being impossible. But I'm so thankful I was impossible right up until the time I met Andrew. Somehow he managed to put up with my impossible and that, my friends, gave me no choice but to fall in love with him. I love and miss him so much. :)

Regardless, you have to be careful. Because if you follow my de ja vu theory, you could choose to be enemies with someone because you had a de ja vu moment while you had a minor argument with them. Not the best logical approach to life. :P

Still, it's kind of a cool thought.

When God takes away a good thing....

I was talking to one of my best friends last night, clumsily trying to help her get over a break-up. And as I'm messaging all this advice for what to do when trying to get over a guy, I startled myself with what I wrote.

My advice to her was that no man should be the source of all your happiness. When God takes away something truly good from our lives we have to just fall to our knees and still trust him through the pain. It's hard to be separated from someone you love, but God is completely in control. If He wants you two together, He'll bring you together. And nothing that you do will make him return to you. If God's not in it, you shouldn't want any part of it.

That's when it hit me like a freight train. God wants me to do the same thing with Andrew. Just like I had to give up control of my past relationship when the guy got deployed, I have to give up control of this relationship. If God wants to return him to me, He will. I don't need to live in a constant state of  angst because Andrew's not with me right now. God is ABSOLUTELY in control.

I was struck by this thought. I had said to my friend: The question you have to ask yourself is, 'Do I trust Him even when He takes away a good thing?

I was initially telling my friend that she should ask herself that question in the midst of missing this guy that she's no longer dating. But, really, God hit me square between the eyes. My boyfriend is literally on the other side of the world (Australia) on a missions trip. He can't talk to me. He can rarely email or text me. I miss him SO much. But I also have to ask myself that question in the midst of missing a guy that I am still dating. 

'Do I trust Him even when He takes away a good thing?'

It was a great relief to just give it to God. It's out of my control. And hard as it was, I decided that even if God permanently took Andrew away from me, Jesus would be all that I would need. I would still trust Him. It's a choice. And at the end of the day, if I do end up at an altar looking into his eyes and saying 'I absolutely do', I can be completely confident that it is a relationship of God.

That is a relationship with God at the center. That is a relationship that knows God only takes away some good things when he has something better.

And honestly? I can't see it getting any better than this. :)

Separation: Everyone reacts differently

For a lot of people, the end of a school semester means freedom. But for the majority of dating people at my school, it means separation. Ironic, right? We all go to a Christian university where we're not allowed to touch. Summer comes, the gloves come off, but we all live 1500 miles apart from each other. The sexual tension builds so much that by the time graduation hits, every one is dying to get married. Genius.

I received a call today that left me almost reaching for tissues. It was a call from one of my best friends. For her, summer had already meant a break up. The reason? He went on a 2 1/2 week missions trip and when he came back, he didn't feel the same way about her. She got the break-up call after she had already mailed him a love letter every day he was gone and also sent him a package full of his favorite candy. UM. That made me mad.

Everyone reacts differently to separation. Honestly, when I set foot on the plane to fly to Antigua this summer, I wasn't sure how I would feel about my boyfriend when I returned. I'd never been away from him. If he was like 95% of the guys I've dated before, I would be completely content to leave him behind. I would flirt shamelessly with the other guys I met, and I would be noncommittal to all. But from the first step on the plane until the last step off the plane, I missed him desperately. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but there was one day when I didn't even want to get out of bed. The whole two weeks I was gone, I couldn't communicate with him at all. I just wanted to be with him. I didn't need other guys. If I talked to them, Andrew always came up. I wore his shirts, volunteered him to beat up guys who bothered me, and for every desktop picture that I stood in front of, I wished he was there seeing it with me. It was SO surprising to come home and find out that he had driven to be with me even though he was worried I wouldn't want to see him or wouldn't be in love with him anymore. Separation had the same effect on him.

And now it's his turn. He's gone, experiencing the world. And I'm struggling through the down time. I'm re-reading old letters and memories I penned in my journals. I breathe in sharply every time I read about the first time he touched me. I get tickled all over again when I read the ways he ticked me off or the ways he tried to make things up to me. I feel special again when I remember the times he has made me feel special. And I just think about him. A lot. I think about that song by Taylor Swift called "Stay, Stay, Stay". That song is us.

So for me, with the right guy, separation means my feelings for him grow stronger. It means that I don't like to travel without him. I don't like movie night without him. I don't like coming home without him. I don't like any other guy touching me. Like the song says, "I just like hanging out with you all the time. All those times that you didn't leave it's been occurring to me I would like to hang out with you for my whole life."

Security

Ever feel stunningly ignorant?

I go from absorbing complex information about electronic medical records and physician referrals and customizing TDAW forms.

And then a director hands me an envelope and says to me, "Forward this to that family." I sit there baffled. And finally, I Google, How to forward letters.

Ever stop asking questions because you don't want to sound stupid? Ever Google for the same reasons? Yup.

That's been me for the last week and a half. Between starting an internship at a huge hospital system and then taking a break to work a different shift at my job, I feel like I don't know anything at all. This is a good place to be in - it means I'm learning new things. But in the meantime, I'm pulled in so many directions and I just want to be good at something. I love being the indispensable one. I want to be the one people call with questions. I love going that extra mile. But I've literally been stopped and scolded for doing extra. I keep stepping on people's toes and not doing it "like they've always done it" because I couldn't possibly know how they've always done it.

I just try to find the most efficient way of figuring out problems. Sometimes I fix it and I'm so pleased. Other times, I just make things. worse. But how was I to know? I don't want to be helpless and not at least try. Mostly, I'm just frustrated with myself right now that I can't be exactly what everyone wants. I'm a people pleaser and when I don't get it right the first time, I'm frustrated with myself. I guess this is my perfectionistic streak. No one is unhappy with me. I'm just unhappy with myself.

Anyways, that's been my frustration lately. I'm mentally exhausted from all these new things and, frankly, I'm already checked out of this week and wishing it was the weekend. I slept 12 hours last night and gave my brother the privilege of dog-sitting duties, if that tells you anything.

So it's very temporary, but I just feel off my game. I don't feel like I'm good at anything. And all I can think of is Andrew. How he would hug me and suddenly none of this would matter. When I'm with him it truly doesn't matter whether I'm successful. I could come home at the end of the day and just be with him. That makes everything better. I feel so accepted by him. I feel like I could lose every guarantee of job security, my church could be in transition, and I could be facing the insecurity of a new phase of life - but as long as he's there, that's all the security I need. It's going to be okay.

So I know reality will rudely drag me from any false sense of calm. But for now, I'm daydreaming that he's not in Australia. Instead I'm lying down and he has his arms around me from behind and I'm falling asleep with his breath on my hair, knowing I am safe with him.

The tiny dog named after a gun

There's something beautiful about house sitting. You walk in and you're hit by both air conditioning and the realization that you have the whole house all to yourself. Well, yourself and...the dog. Yeah, there's a dog.

I'm not a fan of dogs. But when I met this one, he promised to be different with his big brown eyes and little buck teeth that can never tuck their way into his tiny puppy mouth. This kid follows me everywhere. Twice I got concerned because I turned around and didn't see him following me. Turns out he was so close to my heels that he was out of my line of vision.

His large 13-year-old owner (my cousin) named him Winchester, after the gun. Pause to understand this. A dog the size of an underdeveloped cat has been named after a gun. But, true to his name, the first time I walked into the house, he charged at me like a pistol, bravely defending his house against the intruder by circling me with huge matador sweeps and scared nips. If I was a burglar, all I would have had to do was sneeze on him. It was adorable.

Shower Songs

*Nothing better than shower songs. Wrote most of these in the shower tonight. Kinda raw, but whatever :) *

Look into my eyes, boy and are you surprised to see love in there?
And so how does it feel, knowing that it's real
Loving you, touching you, being you.
It was you all along,
Boy, only gonna say it once, I was wrong.
Turns out the only thing between us was time.

Skin against skin - passion.
Insecurities open - raw.
Fingertips raking - exploration.
Lips tracing - sweetly.
Eyes smile - teasing.
Hand in hand - magic.
Arms around me - safe.
Conflict scrapes - deep.
Smile through tears - hero.
Talk about God - reverent.
Tie pulled in for kiss - need.
Backing off, tap on nose - respect.
Holds closer during scary movie - protected.
Looks helpless when woman cries - adorable.
Kisses me up against a wall - desire.
Talking for hours - friend.
Can't let go, one more hug - goodbye.
Can't let go, one more hug - hello again.
Slow dance to no music, step on toes - love.
All this. One thing - you.

Baby I'm drowning in you.
The ocean is getting higher,
The water is closing over me.
And I watch helplessly, loving it.
The shower's falling over me,
And I let it wash senselessly,
I'm drifting out to sea,
You'd think that I was crazy,
No, I'm just crazy with you.
I have no control over you.
And I like it. ;)

The wind is hot, the fire's hotter.
It's blowing me, it's blowing farther.
Farther away from loving you, babe.
I've been with you, I've been with others,
I've met the dads, I've met the mothers.
Baby, it's pushing me away.
So one day soon you pull me close,
And say I do. I feel the noose.
And then I look into your eyes and see
That loving you, loving me,
It's not so complicated.
That loving you, loving me,
It's quite interrelated.
And if I simply give up,
These chains that hold me back,
I can be truly free with you.

Chapter 2 - When the Enemy is your Friend

**Chapter 1 can be found in my November 3, 2012 entry**
**Below is Chapter 2 of my 53,000 + word Christian Crime Novel called When the Enemy is your Friend. Yay! I finished...now I just need to edit and refine it. :P **

The changes Alyson had planned for herself at University of Wisconsin Whitewater were small changes—changes in her wardrobe, her choice of friends, and her reputation. But she had little success there. Alyson wasn’t a boring person to befriend, but she quickly realized that all of the people willing to be her friend were exactly like herself—complete with frizzy hair, wrinkled clothes, and poor taste in clothing. When she first moved into her dorm room, she was confronted by the shocked expressions of two girls. The oldest one, Becky, gave her an all-teeth smile that seemed to say she was internally vomiting from pity and horror. Her Sophomore roommate, Bree, was not so subtle. She took one look, dropped her jaw, and then said, “Great….” and turned away indefinitely.

Alyson became aware that her long flipped-up hair-style had been semi-popular among the younger teens at her conservative church but it looked down-right ridiculous out in “the real world.” She also quickly discovered just how sorely she stuck out when she wore her conservative skirts—clothes that had seemed appropriate for church, but were entirely inappropriate for life on a college campus. She felt miserable with self-pity and knew better than to call home about it.

                “We’re praying that you’ll give up this foolish idea of going to a secular college,” her father had told her on both occasions she had reached him on her father’s ‘emergency-only’ cell phone. “Besides, a woman’s place is in the home,” he added firmly.  Her mother chimed in, “It’s not right for a young girl to be out there alone, and you don’t need further education. Your father met a nice young man the other day who wants to be a missionary to Brazil. Of course, we would miss you when the two of you are married, but sacrifices have to be made…..”

                When her father expressed concerns that she would change and begin to dress like people outside their conservative faith, Alyson had to work hard to make him think she blended in on campus.

                “Don’t worry,” she had assured them. “I feel real comfortable in my skirts. People accept me for who I am. I’m not changing.”

                “We expect you’re not,” had been her father’s adamant reply. “Don’t forget who you are.”

How could she forget? Alyson spent her first semester struggling to conform to what her parents wanted, as well as struggling to please the new people in her life. It seemed to be an impossible tug of war. Each time she went to ask God if He could help her, she heard her parents telling her it wasn’t God’s will that she go to a secular college, and she would lose the desire to pray. She was already outside of God’s will, so why bother? Each time a boy laughed at her in the halls and called her Virgin Mary, she would wonder if it was God’s judgment for her going to school despite her parent’s warning. Each time she tried to wear a calf-length skirt, she was distinctly aware that her unshaven ankles were showing and she felt with each step that she was walking away from God. Somehow, her relationship with God seemed to be married to her parents opinions and her churches standards. The further she got from her parents and churches expectations, the further she got from God. Every night for the first semester she would bury her head in her pillow, sobbing over the pressure of school assignments, impossibility of roommates, expectations of teachers, and the looming dread of bills. That’s when she would hear the disapproving voice of her mother in the back of her head. She convinced herself it was her conscience and that in order to get her education she would simply have to go against her conscience. But she worried that to go against her conscience was to go against God, and of course, according to her father, this meant God would not bless her life.

Although Alyson had applied for many scholarships, she continued to fall short of the qualifications for financial aid. Her parents weren’t in the military, she wasn’t from a different race, her parents weren’t disabled, she didn’t write a stellar enough essay, and the list of reasons the government didn’t think she needed help continued. Ordinarily she would have qualified for aid based on her Dad’s feverishly low annual income, but because she had sat out a year working at the corner gas station, she had saved up $6,000 and this amount in her bank account disqualified her for any governmental aid. God’s judgment again, no doubt.

Alyson could never feel truly depressed, though, when was she working her college job at the newspaper. Well, technically she just worked in and around the media wing…as a janitor. Even though she only swept the floors and dusted the studio, she loved the smell of ink and the busy chatter of the journalists as they cracked out their stories, sweating earnestly from the deadlines. Alyson fell in love with hearing constantly updated news on the TV and watching everyone’s open reaction to it, some reaching for their note pad’s to hurriedly scribble down a brilliant new article idea, others bah-ing at the unnecessary bias. The atmosphere was so fast-paced and—.

“Excuse me, could you please watch where you’re going,” said one of the journalists, looking down her nose at Alyson and tossing her long black hair over her shoulder. Her name was Lyla Smith and she was notorious for being one of the most popular and most impossible-to-please girls on campus. Alyson blushed, realizing she’d been standing in the way of those trying to get to the copier and had been pooling water on the floor with her mop. She hurried to clean up her mess, feeling even more embarrassed when a cute guy named Jake had to move his chair back so she could swipe her mop underneath it.

“Sorry,” she muttered, her hair stringing greasily into her vision, and her head pointed to the floor.

“No prob,” he said, obviously believing himself to be very cool as he eyed her long khaki skirt with a smirk on his face.

“You a Bible thumber?” he asked her, leaning back in his chair.

The guy sitting next to Jake cursed and said, “Idiot— everyone knows she is. Just focus on the polls, man. I need my stats.”

Alyson was speechless and went back to scrubbing the floors vigorously. Her dress spoke before she could, telling the world that she was some kind of traditional Christian with a hidden message that she would spew at anyone who got too close. She did not like the person people saw her to be.

One guy apparently didn’t care how weird she looked. He proved this by consistently staring at her in their Biology class and twice he awkwardly tried to ask her out. Both times, Alyson turned him down at the encouragement of Bree.

“Max is a loser,” Bree informed her. “Look at him with his pale face and jet black hair—he belongs with the emo group. I’m surprised he hasn’t joined them by now. He’s in Miss Barker’s office enough.”

“Miss Barker’s office?” Alyson asked with confusion.

“Counseling,” Bree explained. “I had to go there once. Trust me, she’s got enough self-help pamphlets in there to paper our dorm room. You don’t want to go in there.”

“Why were you in counseling?”

“Family stuff.”

“What family? I thought your parents died and you were an only child?”

“Yeah, I thought so, too.”

“You have a sibling?”

“I might. I was adopted. Kevin’s father is helping me locate my birth family. He has connections,” she said, a smug face taking shape over a face that had looked genuinely sincere about finding her family. Bree clearly took pride in the fact that she was not a loner.

Alyson had noticed that Max was a loner, and that made her feel somewhat empathetic towards him. Although Bree tried to include her in some things, she could see her roommate didn’t want her around when she was with her boyfriend Kevin and his friends.

“I’m sorry, love, but I want to be popular,” she’d explain with a shrug. Alyson didn’t hold it against her. After all, Kevin was the son of a Senator and Bree constantly gushed about him and his powerful family. But she wondered if she shouldn’t have been kinder when she turned Max down. Now anytime she ran into him, he looked at her darkly and ignored her attempts at saying a polite hello. He kind of scared her, mainly because he looked so angry.

But there were a lot of angry people at school, and Alyson quickly learned just how many groups there were on campus. In high school there had been the more likeable kids and the shyer kids, but pretty much everyone looked alike and got along because she went to a small Christian highschool. From her vantage point in the college cafeteria, she saw people from all different back grounds. Since she ate alone she found herself amused by a generous amount of people-watching. And one thing she noticed about each group of college students was that they all seemed to find each other and they all seemed to be sending a message.

The popular group did everything loudly and dominated the campus with their demand for attention. Alyson found them to be annoying, especially the guys in it that would stoop down to her lunch table from time to time to see how “the virgin Mary” was doing. The studious group blended in the most, going from class to class and studying in the library. They were mostly pretty boring. The artsy group was sporadic, always going to conventions and dressing a little strange. Alyson’s eyes would often bug out in amazement at the outfits they would proudly wear in the name of expression. The hick group came straight from the country, and in Bree’s opinion they ought to go right back. They wore cowboy boots proudly and could be found at any number of hick bars over the weekend, proudly whipping out their fake ID’s and claiming they could hold their liquor like no one else. The emo group painted their eyes with thick eyeliner, and with their downcast eyes seemed to be telling the world to stay away. Still, Alyson had tried to befriend Steve and Nick, two emo guys who sat near her in History lecture, and they’d actually responded to her efforts. They said hi to her and gave small smiles when she asked them questions. But one day when one of the boys was stretching, Alyson noticed deep cuts on his wrist under his long sleeves. When she naively tried to ask him about it, both buys cut her off and refused to speak to her again.

“They’re cutters,” Bree explained to Alyson, who was extremely confused.

“You mean, they do that to themselves?” Alyson asked.

“Don’t look so shocked. A lot of kids do it. It’s not just a Goth thing.” Bree defended.

“Why do people do it?” Alyson asked, unsure why anyone would want to harm themselves.

Bree seemed a little disgusted with her. “Listen, not all of us grew up like you. We weren’t coddled in church and protected from drugs and rape and suicide. It’s a guilt thing. My old man hung himself in our kitchen, so I get it. I’ve cut myself since I was 13. It’s a way to cope.”

Alyson was speechless. “Where? I don’t see any scars.”

Bree paused, and then shrugged, “Sometimes the scars aren’t always visible.”

Alyson thought about her Brother-in-law Jerry, Faiths’ dad. He drank heavily and consistently avoided getting a job and paying the bills. Surprisingly, Alyson’s older sister, Suzie, indulged him, and when the bill collector’s bothered them too much, they would simply pack up and leave, leaving no change of address behind. She would generally contact Alyson and let her know where they were, but she never let on to her parents where she was. It was no wonder after Alyson’s parents felt they had failed with their eldest that they turned to the church to keep their next two children in line. Alyson wondered with a pang if Faith was going to grow up with the kinds of scars that she was seeing all around her.

Regardless of what scars she saw and what group of people Alyson observed, no one’s scars seemed to match hers and she never fit in to any group.

Alyson was at a low point in her life which seemed lower than any time she was stuck in her little trailer home, frustrated with the lack of direction in her life. She began to wonder if God had done to her what he had done to the Israelites—brought them out of Egypt only to let them wander through the dessert. It certainly didn’t seem very fair, but Alyson tucked that thought away for later. It made her feel guilty.

She tried to follow her religion carefully. She read her Bible in the morning, ignoring the silent curiosity of her two roommates who stepped over her and rushed to their classes. Twice she was late getting to class because she had taken extra time to follow her religion, and the teacher scolded her openly. Alyson had not needed a reason to feel more awkward in her classes, and she could only imagine how she looked with her unwashed hair tousled, her long skirt wrinkled, and her eyes feverish with exhaustion. Even in her tired state, she could read the expression of scorn and pity in the eyes of her classmates around her, and Alyson felt frustrated once again. She knew there was no excuse for being late, and she couldn’t help but feeling that sleeping in might have done her more good than reading a chapter of old English.

The memory of miserable mornings like those stayed with her, especially when she had a conversation with her father after church one Sunday before Thanksgiving.

“Are you having a good testimony at school?” He asked her, his voice thick with concern. There was no mention of how she was going to spend Thanksgiving on a strange college campus. Just, how is your faith holding up?

“Yes, Dad. Everyone knows I’m a Christian.” Alyson said quickly, her heart stabbed with momentary anger over the question. Good testimonies were meant to attract people who were “unsaved,” or “not converted to the faith.” The purpose of a good testimony was that people would be so impressed with your calm, powerful faith that they would say, “I want that. Whatever you have, please share it with me.” Yes, she wanted to add, everyone knows I’m different but this makes them want to pity me, not join me.

“Are you sure, because you’re mother and I are trusting you.”

“Yup,” she said, closing the conversation quickly, and feeling confused by her feelings of anger towards her father. What she really felt like saying was, “You’re the reason why I’m miserable. I came here to get away from you. Instead, because I’m being a good testimony for your God, I look like an absolute fool. I came to escape your lousy reputation, and here I am representing it.”  She was shocked by these thoughts and chided herself quickly. Her father’s God was her God, too. She was going to college for herself and because it was what God wanted. But deep down she wanted to know how anybody could know what God really wanted. What if God didn’t care what she did?

She began to change gradually—subtly, even. She took on a second job as a Starbucks barista. Between that job and being a janitor, she was averaging 20 hours of work a week, leaving her to struggle with 18 credits of school. She spent her first pay-check on two new brand-name pairs of jeans, her roommates giggling with her in excitement as she tried on pants for the first time. Becky, the senior in her room, let her borrow her straightener indefinitely.

“What am I going to do with that thing?” she asked, obviously giving up on her mess of curls, mainly because her fiancé Richard liked them.

So Alyson faithfully washed and straightened her hair in the morning. Her roommate, Bree Steffens, declared that Alyson was her “project,” and some mornings she would wake up with a shirt in mind for Alyson to borrow. Alyson began spending a percentage of her checks on building up a wardrobe that mirrored Bree’s style. She fell instantly in love with heels when Becky let her borrow a pair and saved up earnestly until she could have a couple pairs of her own. She worked harder than she’d ever worked in her life to build an image that she had always dreamed of having and she knew she would not be satisfied until she reached that image.

At first Alyson felt self-conscious in her new wardrobe, especially when she wore her first pair of jeans. She thought for sure everyone would notice and stare lewdly at her legs, as this was the reaction her father had always assured her she would receive. But she found that she finally received exactly the attention she wanted—none. She blended right in.

“I’m normal!” she allowed herself to wildly hope.

The first time Bree graduated Alyson to heels with a short skirt, she walked with Alyson down the hall at college, encouraging her to meet people’s eyes. Alyson kept her eyes mostly downcast, expecting eyes that looked over her or glanced at her with scorn. Walking with Bree, her roommate, she noticed something new. Boys acknowledged them appreciatively, some even smiling at them and saying hey.

“Look at them, noticing you,” Bree said with a smirk. Alyson blushed and said, “I look ridiculous.” But she only said that to be polite and she hoped they were looking at her, and not just at Bree. She didn’t know why she hoped that; she only knew that she loved the new appreciation and she wanted more.

 With that change, she began to feel liberated from the suffocating feelings of guilt over doing little things that she knew her parents would be aghast over. 

“Pop!” she said, giving a sound effect to the top button on her shirt. Her mother would have gasped and told her to fasten that right back up or she would get raped! The thought made her want to laugh until she was on the floor now. The changes in her would probably alarm her parents. But Alyson loved the new changes and was even embracing them. She felt more comfortable with herself and her reputation now than she ever had. And she didn’t stop reading the Bible. She surprised her roommates when she continued to read that little worn book every morning. She found she had more time to think about different verses and make sense of them since she was up early anyways to do her hair. The promises she read in the Bible gave her hope and she began to promise herself that she would never again rely on other people to tell her how to interpret the Bible. “It’s my Bible, my faith, and my God,” she thought possessively, loving that she really was much more ready to give an answer now when someone asked what made her different.

Alyson stopped mumbling when she spoke in class. She held her back straighter and treated her classmates with more respect now that she was willing to meet their eyes. She found her head clearer than ever to dive into her studies and when she sank into her bed at night she felt the exhilaration of someone who was finally figuring out her life and doing a good job. She continued to save most of her check from work, putting it towards school, and she saved out 10 percent since it said in the Bible you should give that back to God. She called home less and less and only felt that familiar dark depression when her parents began asking her for details about college life.

“My grades are doing great!” she told them proudly.

“What I’m more concerned with,” her father said slowly, “is how your spiritual walk is going?”

“It’s going great,” she responded honestly. 

“Just great?” he asked. Alyson felt the old frustration in her spirit. Why did he need details? Why was he always so focused on how she was changing everyone’s view of God and her church? Couldn’t he for once ask her if she’d made friends, or if she was paying her bills okay, or if she needed help?

But all these things didn’t matter to Alyson anymore, and she stopped expecting her parents to change.  She was comforted simply by the change in the way people looked at her. She still ate alone at lunch, but she preferred this since she had so much studying to do and so little time between English 102 and her job at the newspaper. She was satisfied to blend in.

The real turn in her popularity came when her English 102 teacher, Rod Blake, pulled her aside one day before lunch, and accused her of something she’d never imagined doing.

“Have you ever knowingly plagiarized one of your papers?” The teacher asked, looking at her closely, his blue eyes looking very hard and small.

“What?” Alyson asked, her mouth opening in horror. “No!” She insisted. “In fact, I live in mortal fear of accidentally doing it.”

“Are you sure? Your paper on The Waste of Recycling?”

“All my words.”

“What about,” the teacher had a stack of what looked like Alyson’s old English 102 papers in front of him and was flipping through them, “ah, this one. Keeping the Crisis out of Energy?”

“Mine. Honest. I researched that one forever.” Alyson was feeling tears well up in her eyes at the thought that she was being accused of something that could very easily get her expelled. How would she pack up her room, say goodbye to her roommates, go back home….? She willed the tears away. This wasn’t possible.

“Eh, what about Running from Religion?” He looked her up and down and put that to the back of his stack. “No, that would be you. No research needed,” he acquiesced.

“Here we go. This one,” he said pulling one from the stack, making Alyson’s mind race with worry over what internet site she possibly misquoted. “When the Enemy is Your Friend,” he read slowly.

Alyson sighed with relief. “That wasn’t even a research paper, sir,” she said gravely.

“Yeah, well, your ideas in here are disturbing,” he said.

“I’m sorry?” she said.

“It’s disturbing to read. You write about how you believe…..let’s see here, it says “in fact the devil is a beautiful creature who may appear to be your friend but is in fact your worst enemy”? It’s like it came out of the head of a religious nut. I don’t want any more of this.”

“Well, at least we can agree that these are my words and not someone else’s,” she defended.

“That may  be, but I want you to rewrite it,” he said briskly.

Alyson sucked in some air and then promptly choked on it. “But that’s impossible,” she insisted, “I have to turn in my research paper next week and I was planning on spending my entire weekend on it.”

“If you want to stay in my class, you’ll find time to do both,” he said promptly.

Alyson wanted to argue, but she was too respectful to argue. “Yes, sir,” she said simply and turned around, feeling hot tears of anger already wet on her cheek. She skipped lunch and went early to work at the newspaper. Maybe if she got done with work early she could spend her evening rewriting her paper.

The office was not as busy as usual. For some reason it was one of those days where there were no elections, no major terrorist attacks, and somehow no breaking news.

“And in the latest,” the news reporter was saying, “The Avonlea Church will be hosting a birthday bash for their minister who turns 70 years old tomorrow—“

“Oh brother,” said Peter, who promptly flicked off the TV set and set back to typing on his computer. The silence in the room was almost deafening to Alyson, and she began to get used to hearing just the sound of fingers typing on keys, alternating with the swish of her mop.

A voice startled Alyson from her trance.

“You that same Bible-thumper who was in here last week?” asked Jake, one of the newspaper staff.

She met his eyes, something she’d been unwilling to do before, and said quickly, “Um, yeah.”

“You look different,” he said, folding his arms, obviously bored with his work.

“Mm, thanks,” she said, turning to a different side of the room and pretending she needed to clean over there.

“You already cleaned that side,” he called out.

“Um, I know. I just… noticed some dirt over here that I must have…missed.” It was a small white lie. One Alyson would pray about later.

“You seem preoccupied. Mind if I ask what’s on your mind?” he asked.  Apparently he really was without something to do.

Alyson searched her mind quickly and then stumbled on her conflict with her English teacher in relief.

“Oh, well, I just had a run-in with my English teacher a few minutes ago. Nothing big.”

“What about? Was it old Snodgrass? He always gives everyone a hard time,” he said obligingly.

“No, I have a different fellow—Rod Blake.”

“Listen to her talk, saying the word ‘fellow,’” he laughed. Peter gave a stiff smile but went on working furiously, apparently bit with the bug of inspiration.

Alyson was quiet for a while and Jake prodded her, “And? What, did he give you a hard time about?”

“He wants me to rewrite one of my papers. He doesn’t think I could have written it.”

Jake raised his eyebrows, but Alyson couldn’t read his expression. “Well,” he asked, “did you write it?”

Alyson’s expression grew dark, “Anybody who read it would know I wrote it. It’s got me written all over it.”

Jake just stared at her for a second and then laughed out loud. “Can I read it?” he asked.

“No.”

“Please,” he begged, and she couldn’t help but noticing how handsome he was, even though she knew she shouldn’t notice that kind of thing.

“Fine. It’s in my blue folder on top of that bag hanging up behind you.”

He scraped his chair on the floor, backing up to reach his arm out and snatch the folder.

“I’m assuming it’s this top paper with all the red marks on it,” he said.

“Yup,” she said, discouraged because she hadn’t even looked at it since he gave it back, and she knew it probably was marked up hideously. It depressed her to think about rewriting it.

She watched his expression nervously while he read the paper. It never changed the entire time he was reading it. Crap, she thought. It’s horrible.

“This is really good,” he said. “Excellent, in fact.”

Alyson was surprised. “Wha—?” But she was cut off.

“But it’s entirely crazy and waaay inappropriate for an English 102 paper. You have to re-write it like he said.”

“What? Why?”

“You mention God entirely too much. You write it like it’s fact, not fiction. Have you not noticed that this is a public university? Government-funded? Bringing God into education is never a good idea,” he explained, looking suddenly very scholarly and journalistic.

“I disagree,” Alyson said, surprising herself and the others in the room who were bored enough to pay attention. “You could be standing in a public place where thousands of religious persons are teeming around you and you would never know it. You say that they simply shouldn’t voice their religious opinion, but have you ever considered that everyone clings to some belief whether they choose to believe in one God over another or no God at all? So to express a belief of no God is just as much a religion as a belief of one God.”

Jake was sitting there, just looking at her. Finally he broke the silence by saying, “Fine. Re-write that paper and then write what you really think and give it to me by Wednesday. We’ve got a little space for this Friday’s issue, and nothing else is going on.”

“I’m sorry?”
“Write me an article,” he said

It was her first big break; a break that made the following week even more stressful and impossible than she had initially imagined. She spent her weekend in a pair of ratty pajamas that one of the girls on her hall had thrown into a “free” pile, rarely moving from one position, her fingers poised over the keyboard of the desktop computer that her school provided in the hall. She had to keep emailing her work to herself in case it got lost, but she managed to finish her research paper, re-write her old paper, and cook up an article that gave her goose-bumps when she read it.

She turned the article in to Jake with triumph in her eyes. It was controversial enough to be read and well-researched enough to be news-worthy. She discussed the average percentage of religious persons on public campuses in the country and the average open religious participation that was encouraged or even permitted on those campuses. She left the article open-ended, but hoped that the article would challenge her peers to start thinking about religious freedom as a future reality on campus.

She should have known better. Nobody reacted to the article, and she had to assume that no one read it. Additionally, her paper still received a C, even with an excellent re-write. But Alyson held one victory close to her chest that Friday night—her first article had been published! And it was about religious freedom—wouldn’t her parents be proud!

It was just the exposure she needed. Just before Christmas break, Jake offered her a position as a staff writer for the next semester. “Peter couldn’t take the pressure,” he explained, “and we need something a little different for our opinion pieces. You’re that different.”

For once, Alyson thought with exultation, being different felt good.