Meetinghouse: Starting life with a second chance →

Most 25-year-olds don’t have to triple check their heart rate during spin class. Most 25-year-olds don’t get hooked up to a heart monitor machine and run on a treadmill until they physically have to stop. Most 25-year-olds don’t have a scar running down the length of their chest. But I guess I’m not like most 25-year-olds.

When I think about second chances, I think about the fact that my life started with one. On June 13, 1994, at the Thayer Center in Waterville, I was born with what could have been a fatal heart condition. Born with TGA (Transposition of the great arteries), my pulmonary and aorta were reversed – which, as you can imagine, is not exactly what my parents were hoping for. This meant that I would need open-heart surgery immediately, and I was rushed to Maine Medical Center in Portland.

A month later, after surgery and recovery, I came home. By the grace of God, my parents, Dr. Wade Hamilton, Dr. Paolini, the doctors and nurses at Thayer, Dr. Reed Quinn and the rest of the cardiology unit at Maine Med., I was given a second chance at living a long, healthy life with a strong heart. Although my years have been scattered with EKG’s, stress tests, ultrasounds and heart monitors, I live a relatively normal life, and I tend to forget about the scar on my chest – sometimes it even catches me by surprise.

After being graced with a second-chance to kick-start my life, I work on turning every moment into my one and only chance to do something spectacular. We’ve all backed out of doing things in our lives due to fear or anxiety, but I try to push my limits and enjoy each moment of my lifelong second chance. While visiting the island of Kauai this year, I stood on a zip-line platform, 100 feet above the ground, terrified. The guide could tell I was nervous, and he said to me “you really don’t have to do it.” Although my knees were shaking and I had tears in my eyes, I said, “I’m going to go, I just have to convince myself.” I knew I had one chance to zip-line over the waterfalls below me, and it wouldn’t take long for me to regret not taking the jump. With that, I closed my eyes, and ran off the platform.

June 13, 1994, could have been my first and last day. I’ll forever honor that knowledge by jumping off of zip-line platforms, sitting still for a tattoo I thought I’d never get (sorry, mom and dad), and speaking my true feelings when others may hold back. I was given my second chance for a reason, so I try to face each moment in my life as the only chance I’ll get.

Life will be bumpy and scary at times, but you just have to close your eyes and jump, because you never know if you’ll be lucky enough to get a second chance.

Vienna Fingers, movie night and equality – majority rules.

We start voting almost as soon as we can talk. Growing up, maybe you voted for pizza for dinner, or to watch the Sound of Music for the thousandth time (sorry mom and dad). If you have a sibling – or two or three – chances are you’ve heard “majority rules” more times than you can count. Before we turn eighteen and proudly step out of a voting booth with an “I VOTED” sticker, we’ve voted for countless things in our life. 

My earliest memory of voting was in Betty Lawrence’s living room as a child. Surrounded by friends I still have today, I voted for whether we’d watch Hook or Jumanji, whether we’d go outside to go on toboggan rides or stay inside to play Pajama Sam, and whether we’d have Vienna Fingers or Double Stuffed E.L. Fudge cookies.

In those moments, I learned two very important facts about voting: not everyone has the same opinion, and the outcome isn’t always what you want. From daycare to school to work to the voting booth, I had to remember those two facts. In 2015, during presidential campaigning, I struggled with the first. In 2016, during the election, I struggled with the second.  

I can remember sitting arms crossed with a grumpy look on my face as a child, pouting over the fact that the vote went to those who wanted to watch a movie instead of working on a craft. At that age, I didn’t understand the feeling of having my vote silenced by the majority. At 22, watching the presidential election, I watched my vote become overpowered by the Electoral College. Both of these moments were confusing and thought-inducing. 

I voted for Hook, I voted for toboggan rides, I voted for pizza day, I voted for the color pink, I voted for the first African American President and I voted for Equal Rights. I voted for my town, for my state, for my country. Sometimes my vote was the minority, but on good days it was the majority.

As we continue to navigate this crazy political climate we live in, may we all remember to vote. Whether it’s for something that seems small and insignificant, or something that could truly change the world; voting is a sign of using your voice. Show up, raise your voice, raise your hand, fill in a ballot – no matter how you do it, vote. Not everyone will share the same opinion, but we all share the same power of voting. So use your power. Speak your opinion. The time is now. 

Register to vote:

https://register.rockthevote.com/

Meetinghouse: The words that suddenly put everything into perspective →

Keep your eye on the ball. Don’t quit your day job. Eat dessert first (a personal favorite). You can’t take it with you. Never bite off more than you can chew. The best things happen when you stop waiting for them to happen.

Over the course of 25 years, I’ve heard plenty of advice. My mom taught me to try each food once before you decide you hate it, which is how I learned to love escargot and Brussels sprouts. My middle school field hockey coach taught me that if you cut corners on the field, you’d cut corners in life. My dad taught me that boys are evil, and repeated that advice every time I dealt with heartbreak. My dear friend Ben taught me to live a little, and he’d be happy to know I’ve done exactly that. But there’s one piece of advice that stood out to me, and it didn’t come from anyone I know.

During finals week of my freshman year of college, I made my way over to a friend’s dorm room to study art history. On my way up the stairs I climbed every day, I noticed a piece of paper that had been taped to the stairwell. Although I was normally distracted by something on my phone, the note caught my eye. Along with being in the midst of my first run of college finals – which were more challenging than I could have expected – I was dealing with being away from my family, my friends and my long-distance high school boyfriend. Momentarily putting this aside, I read, “It’s a bad day, not a bad life.”

Suddenly, all of my worries disappeared – even art history couldn’t bring me down. I did my best to remember those words for the next three years of college. Sometimes it was really hard. I went through a tough breakup; I lost friends, endured bad grades, dealt with the occasional unsupportive professor, homesickness and the death of a best friend. On harder days, it felt like a bad life, but I tried to remind myself that it was just a bad day.

So although I’ve heard incredible advice from family, friends, mentors, teachers and other influential people in my life, the best advice I’ve ever received was from a stranger who took time during finals week to share some encouraging words with a college freshman. Now, seven years later, I cope with life much easier by remembering those words. Each day is a fresh start, and I do my best to start with a smile – and a homemade breakfast burrito, you can’t have a bad day when you start with a breakfast burrito.

Everything in life is temporary unless you make a conscious choice to hold on to it. It’s important to remember to step back, take a deep breath and try to turn the situation around. It’s hard to make the best of a bad day, but you’re always in charge. Just remind yourself it’s a bad day, not a bad life.

Meetinghouse: The hardest secret I’ve ever kept →

A phone call can change a life. In this case, it changed multiple lives (four, to be exact).

Growing up, I never felt like an only child. I was always surrounded by friends, but I craved the sibling bonds that I witnessed in the lives of my friends. After months and months of adoption parties (which bring together children in foster care and potential parents), my dad met this little girl (who he aptly nicknamed “Peanut”). She was literally bouncing off the walls, and presumably asking for a slice of pizza or to do another craft.

So, after a few parental discussions that I wasn’t involved in, a small, bubbly, energetic little girl started spending weekends at the Graziano household. This was the result of me asking for a sibling, along with my parents deciding they had heard enough of me asking for a sibling. Harley came flying into our house with all of the energy you could expect from a 10-year-old girl. We’re only four months apart, so it felt like I had gained a sister and a best friend all in one. Between tea parties with our American Girl dolls and pretending that the long hallway in our house was an airplane, we became soul sisters. I finally learned what had been missing all along.

It wasn’t long before I was telling everyone in my life about this girl who I hoped and prayed would become my sister. And it wasn’t long after that when I learned that she truly would become my sister. One Sunday morning at church, Harley rushed into Sunday school and promptly shouted with joy in her voice, “I’m being adopted, and you’ll NEVER see me again!” I held back giggles, knowing a secret that she didn’t, and our Sunday school teacher cried, wondering how on earth we would let someone else adopt Harley.

To this day, that is the hardest secret I’ve ever kept. I don’t remember the exact timing, but I do remember the phone call. We were finally going to tell Harley that it was us who planned to adopt her.

I remember the ringing of the phone and waiting impatiently for my parents to hand it over so I could talk to my new sister. They told her it would be official, that she would soon become a Graziano. Then it was my turn, and I said, “Hi, Sis.” We chatted, and then she asked, “Can I talk to Robyn?” I’ll never forget what I said next: “You know, you can call her ‘Mom’!”

Over the last 15 years, I’ve received many phone calls either from or pertaining to Harley. Some good, some bad, some joyful, some hard to handle. But no matter what we’ve been through as sisters or as family, I’ll always hold that first phone call closest to my heart. The one where I finally introduced myself as Nunzi, a sister.

Meetinghouse: Living out big dreams in a small state →

On paper, jobs in Maine could be based anywhere. They all include a certain salary, a couple weeks of paid vacation, health benefits and a promised work-life balance. But beneath the contract that you sign on Day One, I’ve found that there’s no place like Maine when it comes to work.

Throughout my life, I’ve worked for Maine-based companies, minus one retail job that I held in high school. Each company has been a family-owned and -operated business that built their foundation on the community. A greenhouse in central Maine, where I learned how to plant strawberries inside a hand-built greenhouse while the snow fell outside, and where I rang up birdseed and geraniums on sunny Saturdays in May. A heritage clothing company that is well-known countrywide, where I learned about a true work-life balance and what it means to get outdoors and truly enjoy it. A small bagel shop in Augusta, where I learned about values and hard work – and the beauty of working early morning breakfast shifts to spend my afternoons on the lake. And now, a family-owned shoe company where I’ve learned the importance of teamwork, and where I’ve had my ideas listened to and recognized.

While the basic differences between each of these jobs are obvious, only people who have lived the life of working in Maine know the similarities. Whether you find yourself working on the fifth floor of an office building in downtown Portland, hauling lobsters at sunrise off the coast or running a local business, you’ve seen firsthand how working in Vacationland is unlike working anywhere else. You can attest to the hardworking co-workers who you’re surrounded by, the drive to succeed in the state we call home and the attitude of “Let’s get this done so we can get outside.”

As all of my college classmates packed up their dorms to work for big agencies in big cities, I followed my big dreams to give back to the state that raised me. Most people were supportive, while some laughed and said, “You’ll never grow if you go back to Maine.” But after holding a few jobs in high school with companies that I still respect today, I knew where I belonged. I craved kayaking, hiking, trips to the ocean, my family, my friends and lobster.

Now, here I am, three years later, living and working in true Vacationland. My friends come from many different fields of work, but we all share the same qualities and experiences in our workplaces. After work, we enjoy walks on trails, not to the subway. On the weekends, we find ourselves on boats or skis, not on crowded rooftop bars with a $20 cover charge. Maine is a gift, and being able to work here while enjoying the beauty of living here is nothing less than a blessing. And we are truly blessed.