An Ode to Hopeful Dreams and Endless Roads
In the fall of 2023, I will be finishing my undergraduate degree in Creative Writing. This was the essay I wrote for the Common App, a love-hate letter to my home state and a recognition of the power we hold in ourselves to turn our dreams into our reality
Before dropping out of college twice, I thought my dreams would die if I settled for a life of simplicity.
I grew up in Maine, the state most people think of as a northeastern oasis: lush green mountains rolling into choppy cliffsides with lighthouses overlooking the Atlantic—and it is, but just not my home town.
Nestled in central Maine, Bangor is a thriving social center turned concrete wasteland. The most entertaining thing to do is to drive around the empty mall's parking lot and dodge potholes like whack-a-mole—and that was if you had your driver’s license, which I didn’t until I was twenty-three, leaving me to escape the stagnancy though books.
I’ve always had an imagination like fire starter. Books were my comfort, and I dreamt of becoming an author—still do. However, as I grew older, I feared those dreams would die if I didn’t leave.
You see, Maine is like whirlpool. No one leaves unless they force themselves out, and I wanted to do something great with my life. So, when it came time for college, I leapt at the opportunity to move eight hours away to New York City.
Yup. The exact opposite of my small town. But I full-heartedly believed it was the right place for me because I thought, if I wanted to make anything of my life and my dreams, I need to be at the center of everything, where a thousand doors of opportunities waited for me.
Within a year and a half, I was exhausted and emotionally drained by the pace of the city and dropped out. I transferred to a university in Boston thinking it would be better, but it wasn't, and this time when I left, I felt lost.
My great plan of making something of myself had failed and I didn’t understand why. Instead of thriving, I was creatively drained, squeezed dry like a tube of toothpaste with no idea of how to get it back. So, I did what most cliché films of lost women in their 20s do: I went back to my roots. Only, instead of returning to Maine, I went to the highlands of Scotland.
For four months, I was immersed in a mythical wonderland where nature and creativity co-existed with the simplicity I was afraid of, or so I thought. To me, Maine was a place where people didn't try for more. They lived and died in the same town they were born in, settling for what I thought was too simple of a life to be fulfilling.
Little did I know, simplicity offers space to create. And with so much nature surrounding me, I soon picked up my pen again and started to write about what I was learning from the world around me. After all, nature is the original storyteller.
Forests hold centuries of tales, carried by the mountains to the winds who speak them into pages of poetry, while rivers and streams guide the hands of potters and painters. Cities may hold well over a thousand physical doors with opportunities waiting behind them, but nature is an entire playground to explore, and I hope to do so while living at pace that is right for me.
I still want to make something of myself. I hope to be an accomplished author one day with many titles under my name. But it will be done while embracing stillness and the simplicity life can bring, because despite my previous beliefs, it's often in the quietest moments where we turn our dreams into a reality.
