After my first semester sophomore year, leaving Cornell behind, I knew I didn’t want to go home to Connecticut. I didn’t think I would be productive in searching for my passion. I decided to move to Philadelphia. Why Philadelphia? I have no idea. I wasn’t ready for New York City, and I had a couple of friends going to school in Philadelphia (one in the city and one at Villanova) so I thought it would be the perfect place for me to go. Boy was I right. I am pretty sure I can say that the best time of my life so far was spent in Philly. A lot of people tell me that I don’t really like Philly because I don’t know what it’s like outside of Center City, so let me just say that I really love Center City! Ok? Everyone happy with that statement? Ok good! Moving forward…

I loved how the city was still bustling like New York City but not as bad. The people I met were friendly, and absolutely amazing, every one of them. I was happy. For the first time in maybe a year or so I was truly happy with what I was doing. I explored the Philly fashion scene, took fashion classes, involved myself in the production of fashion shows, and was even offered an internship with Oscar de la Renta. I learned so much about myself and found a strength inside of me that I never knew was there. Unfortunately the down side of it all was I mastered all I was doing too fast and I lacked the challenge that I had here at Cornell. I was tutoring classes that I hadn’t even taken yet, and people started coming to me for advice and approval for things I was pushed into taking leadership of. I remained happy, but I started to feel like something was missing. I decided to apply to Drexel University so I could experience more challenging academics but still be close to the hub of it all. It was nearing fall semester and I got accepted to Drexel but it seemed like nothing was falling into place. My housing, my financial aid, and everything else wasn’t coming in on time and everything seemed to be falling apart. I took this as a sign that my run in Philly was over and it was time to go home to Connecticut.

I came home at just the right time. My uncle passed away and my mom took it really hard. I was there to be a support for my family and I bore that responsibility even when it became very heavy. My little brother, age 6 now, has Autism so my mom was also going through a lot with that at the time. It seemed to be too much for her. When he was diagnosed I thought she was going to fall apart. She had been telling the doctors that something was wrong for years and she finally got her answer, but I will talk more about my brother in a post later on. I became a pseudo parent for some time, helping my mom with him in any way I could. I loved being with him. He is still the only one who makes me belly laugh until it hurts. But after a while I started to feel a pull to get back on track with pursuing my future. That is when I realized that I had worked so hard to get into Cornell while I was in high school and I deserved to graduate with that degree. I immediately emailed my advisor to see if maybe it was time to come back to Ithaca.

Final part coming next week!