4. Red (Taylor’s Version

Chapter One: What Accounts?

The accounts are all gone! It’s the year 1211 and the sea is turning itself upside down. Tides turn. Boats Crash. Grounds Flip. 501 Years later in the year 1712, a man casually sitting in the mail room on a Sunday afternoon said “Remember all those accounts” Everyone looked at him, confused “What did he just say?” Lady Pelham exclaimed. “What on earth does he mean by ‘accounts’? “How strange” Mr. Crawley said after taking a sip of his white tea. “Accounts!” The man said. “Everyone put their biscuits down and got up to catch the next carriage ride. 281 years later: In 1993; Jimmy, running in a hurry to get to the office, passed a sign that said “Real Accounts”. It confused him. He carried on. 18 years later September 9th, 2011: A hockey team is ready to play a match. One of them gets a flashback to his past. When he was a child- in 1993, he had seen a sign that said “Real Accounts” on it. Stunned at the memory, he decides to quit the team. What was so important about those real accounts?

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Chapter Two: Bread Master Days

So, if you’ve read the previous book; you know that I tend to switch between writing about philosophy, stories, and past experiences. I want to touch on my bread master days. Spring of 2012, I moved to a small area temporarily. Things were quite confusing at home, so I was able to make a little bit of money off of selling my quilt art. I had only made enough to pay the rent for one month so I needed a job. Now, I hadn’t been to college and was still finishing up school, so I decided to pick up a job at the cabbage and bread place. Around March of 2012: I walk in, it’s a big garden with cabbage growing from the ground and little pastel blue and green stools with bread on them. On my first day, I was pretty astonished to see how many people came. Everyone was pretty quiet. Almost as if, the cabbage needed peace to grow and they were giving it and all the other crops just that. I sold bread there. In little bundles of cardboard cups, the bread was circular and round. By late April of 2012, I was so bored with this job. Every day, I saw people come in and take some bread or cabbage and leave. It was so boring to me at the time. I analyzed it and wrote this:

“Ugh, every fucking day. I see these bitches come in and take something and leave. I am fucking bored of the cycle and I want more with life.”

I felt so lonely there. Sometimes, it would rain out of nowhere and we’d have to pack up shop and try and save as much bread as we could. The cabbage people were fine because their cabbage needed water anyways. But, we bread sellers were scrambling trying to protect our bread and it felt so unfair.

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Reflecting on this now, I regret being so ungrateful. I regret wanting more because I believe that you should try and make the best of the things that aren’t incredibly terrible. Things that may seem boring, only seem that way because you’re going in with that point of view. I acted out of arrogance. I regret it. Anyways, in the summer; I decided to go back home after I heard that things had settled down. A few months after, when finals for school got difficult. It had sunk in, the regret. I felt like a spoiled little bitch who couldn’t handle anything. It made me question a lot of things about myself. But! I decided to move forward. That October, Taylor Swift dropped a new album called “RED” and it made my whole life so perfect. If you’ve read my previous memoir; you might start to notice a pattern of things being boring or difficult and fixed with a Taylor album. They always are. I don’t think about my bread master days often… But I feel incredible regret for how ungrateful I was. Right now, I would totally go back and sell bread. The weather was always really nice and people weren’t mean. I would totally go back and re-do it, make the most out of it and make it an enjoyable and memorable experience.

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Chapter Three: Alaina Housley

I want to do this chapter right. I want to do right by Alaina and put justice on her name. Alaina Housley was born July 27th, 2000 and passed away November 7th, 2018 due to a mass shooting. Her aunt-in-law, Tamera Mowrey Housley, who some of you may know, said some things about her on television not too long after her death. She said “Our family's been through a lot, but the interesting thing about grief is that you've got to find the balance of moving forward and grieving at the same time it's just been a little over two weeks” “She would want me to move forward, I don’t like to say move on, because I don’t think I will ever move on with the fact that she’s not here with me, or with our family, but she would want me to move forward. And use her voice as a catalyst for change and that’s why I’m here today.”

She also followed by saying some things about Alaina’s personality and her life: She says “I knew Alaina since she was five” “When Alaina would walk in a room, she would change the atmosphere.” “Alaina was my little sister. She was my niece from marriage but she was my friend and my sister from my heart.”

Mass shootings need to stop. Let’s remember Alaina’s name. You can visit alainasvoice.org to read some more about her and ways to help prevent mass shootings.

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