Growing up, I always thought of my Grandfather as the most fun (and definitely my favorite) family member.  Which is saying a lot since I grew up with dozens of cousins and second cousins who were in and out of our house constantly.  I was never in want of needing someone to play with as the house was always full of noise…

I always took the stairs to our fourth-floor apartment.  Always.  In the four years I have lived in the building, I have not once taken the elevator.  No one understands my ‘fear’ of elevators, but it is really my serious dislike of small places and the possibility of someone else being in that small space with me.  I grew up with several siblings in…

Growing up, I never thought I would be successful.  My parents managed to tell me just about every day that I would be a failure.  That I would end up just like my sister, pregnant at 16 and still without a GED.  Four years and two kids later, she’s still hanging around on the edge of…

Growing up, I never really liked to camp, but suffered through those weekends because my dad seemed so obsessed.  And it was the only time that my mom stopped drinking for part of the day.  If I had been older, I would have been drinking while we were camping and not while we were at home. …

Growing up, Sarah knew she wanted to live in New York City.  She scoured the internet for apartments, for jobs, for restaurants.  She knew exactly where she would shop and eat and how she would live her new life in a big city.  She was tired of the small town life.  Tired of wide open skies.  Tired of everyone…

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.  I almost screamed with excitement.  They were the most exotic red, yellow and orange colors I had ever seen.  The fact I had been cooped up in my house for the last six months probably enhanced my fascination with the changing colors.  The last…

I always wanted to move to a different country.  To travel.  To get out and experience ‘life’. I literally could never get it out of my mind.  My fiancée, however, wants to stay in the town he grew up in and would happily live next to his mother for the rest of his life.  No way in hell am I…

I never understood the people who always wanted to go back to their high school reunions.  I liked high school to a certain degree, but never felt like I needed to go back and relive all the ‘good ol’ days’.  I was happy to graduate and take my high school parking pass off immediately.  I kept up with a few…

As night became day, he started to understand the truth.  He knew who his father was.  What his father was.  But he could not reconcile himself with the outcome.  Henry was always told that his father was a hero, a saint, a man who was revered by all.  Now he knew better.  It all started the day his…

I really hated apples and I most definitely hated apple picking.  But I sucked it up and went with my family.  Every.  Single.  Year.  All the apple picking did was make my stomach and my heart hurt.  All I could remember was the year my brother had vanished and how everyone said that he was…