Turning Point

Isn’t it funny how we’re in the exact place we’re supposed to be at the exact time we’re supposed to be there? It’s fate, I guess… but we can’t blame fate for our own stupidity and stubborn avoidance of what it’s set up for us.

Hello, I’m Katie and, for nearly a year, I was victim to my own stupidity.

Stupidity in what? Well, love of course… among other things, I guess. My life, especially in the last year, has not been average.

High school was a funny place for me. I had many friends, but I kept them separate from what I loved so I was always detached. My passions were journalism and photography, music and theater… well, the technical side of theater. My friends all enjoyed gossip and boys and makeup. I became quite good at faking interest in their interests.

I didn’t resent them for their average attitudes… we lived in an average size town in Midwest USA… there wasn’t much to do in town if you’d seen all the movies and didn’t feel like bowling or mini-golfing. Every person there dreamed of getting the hell out of Dodge… even our parents.

I graduated and my friends left for college; none of them were missed. I knew that traditional college wasn’t for me; frat parties and loud roommates never sounded attractive. My parents were extremely upset when I didn’t at least attempt to enroll in the local community college for its fall semester. Their constant nagging and not-so-subtle hints drove me closer to insanity every day.

My journalism teacher, also the director for the plays and musicals that my high school had produced, was more like family to me than my real family was. She was young and ended up taking me under her wing, teaching me everything she knew. She knew about my frustrations at home; and I have a strong suspicion that she was the one to put my name on a mailing list for college alternatives.

It was mid-July when I got a flood of mail from unusual places, such as the Clown University and Mechanics Apprentice. My parents were delighted, they believed I’d started to show initiative to get my life started.

Most of the mail I got was bogus; it immediately went into the trash. A few places actually interested me, so I stacked those up until I could look into them more.

That’s where I found this amazing place, the Della Academy for the Arts. It was a college; going there got me a degree, but it was so unique that it wasn’t recognized by the state as one. Della Academy is located in Louisiana, in a little offset of New Orleans. It was very small because it was very selective of its students. Its newspaper was phenomenal and its theater department was exclusively technical; all actors were hired outside the academy.

I fell in love.

I immediately sent in an application and wheedled a few recommendations out of my disgruntled teachers who were mad to be bothered in the summer. A few weeks of waiting with my fingers, toes, and eyes crossed for luck and I found myself shaking with the acceptance letter in my hands and a ripped envelope on the floor.

My parents, of course, were extremely happy to hear I wasn’t going to live with them for the rest of my life. They didn’t understand or agree with my choice, but it was my choice so they didn’t have much say in the matter. I’d even be paying for school by myself, using years of birthday money and the money a crazy aunt left me on a whim.

The beginning of September and I was out of there. The trunk that held all of my junk was left in the hands of the airline and I boarded the plane to New Orleans.