ABOUT THIS PROJECT

This essay takes place in the late 1990s, when I was an undergraduate studying wildlife biology and literature. There was a unique tension and urgency I felt during that period of my life—tension that was driven by external pressure to choose a specialty, but also internal pressure to figure out who I was and what I wanted as I crossed the threshold into adulthood. I had largely raised myself, but still longed for some external force to guide and nurture me.

It all came to a head my senior year when I took on a demanding internship caring for sea turtle hatchlings while also writing a thesis, building a creative writing portfolio, and having an existential crisis about who I was dating.

I decided to time travel a bit and write about these events in present tense, because many of the themes and questions I held back then feel relevant today. Read more at CRAFT Literary magazine