2B

Magazine Editor:

Ian DIllingham

Deputy Editor:

Natalie Gadbois

Design Editor:

Jake Wellins

Photo Editor:

Luna Anna Archey

Illustrator:

Megan Mulholland

Maggie Miller

Editor in Chief:

Jennifer Calfas

Managing Editor:

 Lev Facher

Copy Editors:

Hannah Bates

Laura Schinagle

Emma Sutherland

THE statement

Wednesday, October 28, 2015 // The Statement

COVER BY LUNA ANNA ARCHEY

“

All you need is a blonde, beer, and a love story 
or a broken heart.” He explained country 
songs as we perched on bar stools. He revealed 

the meaning of a Yeti 110 iced down and silver bul-
lets.

When I took a 6-week internship in the middle 

of the country, I had no idea that my summer would 
include all these things.

I was more terrified to make the journey to 

Topeka, Kansas than the adventure I made to India 
my first half of the summer. When imagining India, 
I was apprehensive, but assured that I would be 
occupied with work, cultural experiences, and the 
company of two other University students.

An internship at The Capital-Journal was a 

looming shadow of what might possibly be my life 
for the next few years: working at a dying publica-
tion in a city where I didn’t know a soul.

***

With an uncharacteristic confidence, he asked 

the girl in cheap boots and a purple backless dress 
swirling around the dance floor of the country 
saloon to dance. With a confidence uncharacteris-
tic of myself I told his friend to invite me to Denny’s 
with them after closing time.

Afterward, with a forgetfulness completely 

characteristic of myself, I locked my keys in my 
car at 4 a.m., and with the kindness and chivalry 
completely characteristic of him, he walked me the 
three and a half miles to his truck and drove me to 
my doorstep.

Fast forward two weeks. A night in the bed of his 

truck stargazing; the warm concrete of the Kansas 
City Chiefs arena parking lot; attempting to teach 
him the two-step I myself still hadn’t perfected; a 
blues concert. I found myself curled up next to him 
as we drove home from Kansas City. The light of 
his radio displayed the Ed Sheeran CD playing, and 
I hopelessly attempted to convince him I was a bad 

idea.

I had failed at three long distance relation-

ships before they had barely even started, and one 
of them was only a fifteen-minute drive away. I 
didn’t know how to tell him that with three states 
between us, these summer nights would remain a 
distant — if warm — memory. Commitment was a 
pleasant thought, especially as our conversations 
stretched hours, but my better judgment and self-
doubt crippled the audacity I typically jump at life 
with. This proposition was a completely different 
kind of adventure, a long, treacherous, and at times 
almost certainly a lonely one.

Even though I grew up in a farm town of 5,000, 

I was never a part of country culture. I lived in the 
country but my adventures included books and 
sports, not guns and trucks. I have fought so hard 
to escape it. Despite most of me making it out of 
my hick hometown, of all places, I now find at least 
a portion of my heart-claiming stake in another 
small town in eastern Kansas.

When I first made the fourteen-hour drive, I 

never could have expected I would be sitting here 
in late September, spending hours playing with 
the presets of cheap travel sites. Fighting to find 
a ticket. Frustrated that during my afternoon run 
everyone doesn’t cheerily greet me, that not every 
cashier engages me in conversation. Frustrated 
that new people don’t ask where my “exotic” accent 
is from. Frustrated that the crowded dance floor 
of Rick’s has replaced the polished hardwood and 
rhythmic clockwise rotation of bejeweled cow-
boy boots of Wild Horse. Frustrated that of all the 
places I could be missing, it’s Topeka, Kansas. And 
most of all, frustrated that I can’t jump in my car 
with the windows rolled down, pick Brett Eldredge 
from any of the multitude of stations playing coun-
try, and drive down the road to the fraternity park-
ing lot where his 1982 Ford pick-up truck is parked.

My newfound tolerance of country music

by Luna Archey, Magazine Photo Editor

ILLUSTRATION BY LUNA ANNA ARCHEY

Let’s get personal. 

Every writer I’ve spoken to has said 
the same thing: writing about yourself 
seems easy, until you sit down to do 
it. How can you possibly consolidate 
your deepest emotions and regrets 
into several hundred words? How 
can you reveal your intimate self to a 
faceless audience? 

Writing a Personal Statement takes 
courage and self-awareness. In these 
pages you will find seven stories of 
love, of loss, of heartbreak, of anger. 
Seven stories from those who dared 
to pour their hearts out onto the page; 
who took the leap and wrote about 
themselves. But as you can imagine, 
when people sit down to write about 
themselves, it rarely becomes about 
them. We peer into their lives and 
find our own beloved mothers, 
conflicted hometowns, favorite 
movies and formative teachers.

These stories matter to all of us.

 — Natalie Gadbois

Deputy Magazine Editor

