Absolute Wannabe

I, Mary Abigail Keith, hate goodbyes. I hate them, hate them, hate them. To me, goodbyes represent uncertainty. Will I ever see this person again? Will I hear from this person? Will I have an experience as good as this...ever? Not knowing makes me feel helpless, and then I start doing the crying and the existential dread and the make-up running down my face. It's really attractive. The last two days have been full of goodbyes. I just finished working as a film counselor for Tennessee's Governor's School for the Arts, helping exceptional high schoolers learn about film. What doesn't seem fair about my experience, though, is that I feel like each one of the 27 kids taught me more individually than I taught them combined. Okay, that's so cheesy I just threw up in my mouth a little bit, but it's the truth. Saying goodbye to these kids, as well as those I got to know in other areas of the program and my incredible fellow counselors, was, of course, heartbreakin...

Here's a secret: I'm not original. I was like every other little girl in the 1990s, idolizing Disney princesses, wanting to join their ranks. Seeing as my favorite was Pocahontas, what I really wanted to do was talk to animals and jump off waterfalls, but, seeing as I was four years old and not animated, that never really happened. It's completely normal for kids to watch movies and want to embody their favorite characters, whether they be princesses, super heroes, secret agents, etc. If an adult walks up to a microphone, though, and says they want to be Superman, eyebrows will probably raise (unless, of course, that adult is Robert Downey Jr. Sadly, though, we can't all be RDJ). That's why, after watching Raging Bull for the first time, the strange desire I had to be a boxer made me feel, for lack of a better term, goofy. I was 19 years old at the time and well past the stage of being able to play on the playground without looks of judgment from passersby. So w...