22 of shoes and khakis every day, and he looked like the base model of a white Midwestern guy. He was great for someone wanting to settle down. At least, for every single religious kid wanting to accomplish a ‘ring by spring’-a disease in that cult they call a college. That wasn’t what Maria wanted. She wanted her life to be perfect like the grove. The closer she got to that grove the more she felt back at home, not the physical home of her childhood—the feeling of home. The grove brought peace, something that her actual house couldn’t. Her parents weren’t the issue; they had been nothing but supportive of her throughout her life. But the taste of freedom when she went into college . . . that could never bring her back to living the old-fashioned life her parents live. When she tasted freedom, her thoughts of becoming perfect were solidified. However, her thoughts of perfection were accompanied by anxiety.She had to be perfect in order to prove to her parents that she could do something other than their ‘get hitched quick’ plan. If there was even one hole in her perfection, she believed it would all come crashing down. A falling leaf pulled her out of her deep thoughts She looked up to see an uneven branch-something she had never seen before. When she looked back to what was ahead of her, she noticed that the trees weren’t perfectly aligned. Her perfect paradise wasn’t perfect? Once she noticed one imperfection, she would see another one and start to question how she could have missed all of these things when she was younger. She picked at her nails—something she started doing because of the anxiety—only to notice an imperfection in her index finger’s polish. She walked farther into the grove and halted at the small pond’s edge. The wind rustled the overhead leaves letting in a sliver of sunlight. A small glare caught Maria’s eye. She knelt down to investigate the glare. As she brushed away the debris, she realized that the glare was a dog tag with a handmade collar, featuring her own crappy attempt at embroidery. When Willow passed, Maria had wanted to bury her here, but that meant that she would have to bring others to this sanctuary that only Willow and she shared. To preserve the grove while still giving Willow a way to be a part of it forever, Maria convinced her parents to let her take Willow’s collar for memory’s sake. As Maria held the collar, she was hit by a wave of emotion. Willow had always loved Maria no matter what. The times Maria had felt loved most by Willow were when Maria considered herself imperfect; Willow had loved her regardless. Maria felt tears sting her eyes and she no longer cared if her makeup remained perfect. Was she having an anxiety attack? No. This wasn’t that feeling-she knew that feeling. Was this feeling . . . relief? She realized this imperfection was perfect for her, and that’s why she imagined this as the perfect place. This was the place where her
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