On the outside, I was a normal teenager with long hair and short skirts and braces. But on the inside, I was different. I imagined, I worried, I wished. More than my friends seemed to. I even wished once that someone would leave a baby on our doorstep. I wanted to rescue something or someone for the longest time. This never happened, of course. But a pretty awesome thing did happen. The man down the street was a Mars Bars candy salesman. He needed a babysitter and he hired me. I got paid in money and candy. And I never thought to wish for that.

I actually liked homework. It was almost like a game to be able to check off every assignment as I finished it. I felt that I was in charge of my own world that way. I was never an A+ student. Bs were more my mantra, mixed with Cs, an A showing up only here and there. And, yes, a D ... pick a math course. But I enjoyed school. I devoured books. I devoured boxed Chef Boyardee pizzas while I read books. I wrote poetry. And I kept diaries.

I have two significant teacher memories of high school, and only one that made an impact on my life. When I was a sophomore, in 10th grade, I began to write a lot of poetry. It might have been partly