I was born in a tall, white hospital in downtown Mobile, Alabama. My twenty-six year old mother was rushed to the hospital by my twenty-six year old father in the same fashion many first-time mothers are. Only my mother was not a first-time mother; she already had two rambunctious boys, both under the age of four. As she lay there under fluorescent lighting, the nurse informed her that the doctor was missing in action. He had gone to the wrong hospital. They reassured her that he would be back within the hour. She did not doubt them, and the doctor came quick… but I came quicker. So I was born. I was born without a doctor. I was born to my mother with my father on one side and the nurse on the other.
At the age of thirteen, my parents finally consented to buy me contacts. I had just started junior high and I was thrilled. I was sure contacts would bring me all kinds of luxuries: more room for eye makeup, a first kiss, maybe even a new reputation. I walked into the store to pick up my contacts the day they arrived. My parents let me go in by myself. I wore black pedal pushers and a blue sweater and I knew that my life was going to change.
When I started wearing contacts, I started wearing blue eye shadow. I started wearing pink eye shadow. I started wearing purple eye shadow. I even started wearing glitter on my eyelids. I did not listen to my mother when she warned me that too much glitter was too much glitter. I did not listen to her when she told me that a fleck of glitter could slide off my eyelid, cutting my cornea, turning me permanently blind. I did not care. I was a new person. I was a slave to fashion.
When I sixteen, I went to a party with a boy I had toyed with since the age of fifteen. When I turned my back, a girl with nappy blonde hair tried to seduce him. She asked him to dance; she tilted back her head and laughed at his lame jokes. Before I knew it, the fear that she would replace my spot on his lap overwhelmed me so much that I quit talking. I didn’t talk to him for the rest of the night until our long drive home. A few weeks later, I still held a grudge about the girl with blonde hair. For his eighteenth birthday, we went to see a movie and I punished him. He bought me a blue Icee and I let it melt in the armrest between us. He told me I should eat it before it turned into liquid. I shoved my hands in my pockets and turned my head to the screen.
Finally, I turned old enough to go to college. I told my parents I could not and would not go anywhere in Utah. I went to the University of Missouri instead. I lied to my parents and told them that there were only co-ed dorms so that I could live with men. I went to classes bright and early, left my dorm at eleven thirty at night, and showered at three in the morning. I started wearing my glasses again because I wanted to look different than the other freshmen. I wanted to be studious, but I wanted to be wild. I wanted to be everything. I wanted to live my life at my own schedule.
I did not stay in Missouri. By my twentieth birthday, I moved myself into a Salt Lake City apartment where I had no friends or family. I started working at a shoe boutique and I traded my ripped skinny jeans and colorful wristbands in for five-inch stilettos and dresses. I tamed my wild hair and laughed when I was supposed to. I made friends and stayed out until two standing ankle deep in snow. I took art classes and drew with charcoal until four in the morning. I ate cereal for dinner and argued with my roommate. I parked on the street and wrecked my car. The next week I hit a motorcycle whose headlights were not on. I gave him forty bucks and never heard from him again. Then I moved to Provo and started school at Brigham Young University.
I turned twenty-two the twelfth of September and my mother still laughs that I have not changed since the first day of my life. I like what I like and I make my own decisions and I show up when I want to and do what I want when I want to. Sometimes I love to be a hermit, but other times there is not stopping me. I’m passionate about faith, about photography, about history, about writing, about literature, about laughing, about music, and about finding the inner spark within everything. I love people and I love stories—all kinds of stories because each one makes me understand something new each and every time. I like to paint my fingernails and I like to feel free and quote song lyrics.
Call me an idealist. Call me a dreamer. Call me funny. Call me a romantic. Call me hazy eyed. I’ll call myself Elisabeth… or Lissa.
