“You can’t do anything about the length of your life,
but you can do something about its width and depth.”
– Evan Esar
As a little girl, my grandmother would help drown me in costume jewelry as big as my head. I would wear her blouses as ill-fitting dresses because I thought they were more glamorous than children’s clothing. I would walk the invisible runway towards my grandfather, striking exaggerated model poses, pausing only for the flash of my nana’s camera.
As I got older, I would tear through books and soak up television shows that I probably shouldn’t have been reading or watching, but I wasn’t content doing what everyone else my age was doing. I spent hours on end researching ideas for out-of-the-box Halloween costumes (one year I was a homemade milk carton—enough said) or coming up with birthday party themes that no one else had used before.
My Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis at age 16 only further ignited my passion to live life to the fullest. I attended college in Miami and studied abroad in Spain despite the fact that everyone—including myself—thought I would go to a small New England school.
To this day, I continue to dress brighter than a traffic cone, wear too much leopard print, talk far too much, and dream crazy dreams.
If there’s anything I want my readers to remember, it’s this: dress boldly, think boldly, and act boldly. Life is far too unpredictable not to live it exactly as you please.
Colorfully Yours,
Haley