{"id":2626,"date":"2014-07-10T13:01:09","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T18:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/?p=2626"},"modified":"2014-07-10T13:01:09","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T18:01:09","slug":"embrace-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/newsite\/embrace-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Embrace It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sara<\/a>by Sara Labor
\nSigma Beta Chapter
\nChadron State College<\/a>, Chadron, NE<\/p>\n

Sara\u2019s blog was selected 2nd Place in the 2014 Convention Story Contest<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

I walk out of the tattoo parlor into the blinding sun and a warm breeze. Savannah<\/a> air fills my nose: the smell of river, trees, and life. As we walk, there is a little skip in my step. I can\u2019t tell if it\u2019s a leftover euphoria from the adrenaline of the tattoo or if it\u2019s just the gorgeous weather. Probably both.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my God, the world is beautiful!\u201d I say, skipping a few steps ahead of Hannah. I look back at her; she is smiling.<\/p>\n

We walk along the brick sidewalk and enjoy the city sounds. At every direction there is something to see: beautiful historic buildings, moss-covered trees, and street musicians. Hannah points out a brass fountain nearby. We rush\u00a0excitedly across the street to get a closer view.<\/p>\n

When I finally get to peel the bandaging from my wrist, the two black words \u201cEmbrace it\u201d greet me. One summer night, while explaining minute plot points of a Doctor Who episode<\/a>, I stopped mid-sentence to say \u201cAm I boring you with all my nerd talk?\u201d My friend Katie shook her head and said, \u201cI think it\u2019s interesting. It\u2019s cool that you talk about nerd things. Embrace it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspired by her words, I grabbed a sharpie to write \u201cEmbrace it\u201d on my wrist. Even before it was permanently scrawled into my body, I would glance at my wrist when I felt unsure about myself.<\/p>\n

\"Sara<\/a>But as I peel off the bandage, it has become so much more than that. For now I am thinking of the speaker we just saw, Daniel Mendelsohn<\/a>, who said \u201cI made my mistake and I stuck to it.\u201d He was talking about the major he\u2019d chosen in college: Classic Greek Literature. \u201cI bet since you\u2019re all here,\u201d he said, \u201cyou stuck to your mistake too.\u201d<\/p>\n

From day one of the convention, I\u2019ve been unsure of myself. At open mic night, I heard someone bragging about getting her novel published, while others spoke about graduate school or teaching. Meanwhile, little \u2018ol me is about to graduate college with no plan and certainly no novel.<\/p>\n

But as I look at the new ink in my skin and think of Mendelsohn, I have to smile. I don\u2019t have to be unsure of myself. I am doing what I love: writing, reading, and discussing these things in a beautiful city.<\/p>\n

I made my mistake.<\/p>\n

I decide to embrace it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Sara Labor Sigma Beta Chapter Chadron State College, Chadron, NE Sara\u2019s blog was selected 2nd Place in the 2014 Convention Story Contest. I walk out of the tattoo parlor into the blinding sun and a warm breeze. Savannah air fills my nose: the smell of river, trees, and life. As we walk, there is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,17,24,32],"tags":[126,165,175],"class_list":["post-2626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2014-convention","category-convention-stories","category-high-plains-region","category-society-wide","tag-chadron-state-college","tag-daniel-mendelsohn","tag-doctor-who"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa2J6O-Gm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wordybynature.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}