Dr. Melissa's Blog

I am so tired of the "good girl gone bad phenomena," which is explained in "It Wasn't Like In The Movies," where I describe growing up in a household leading a drug ring, but how I manage to get accepted to a pharmacy school at a private catholic institution and still pay for it...in the regular way...It has been said that my life could be made into a book/movie before I even hit my 20's.

There were many arrests (including my mom and sister) because of huge drug operations in the small community of Norfolk, NE. I raised my sister's children while on rotations (clinicals) during my last year of pharmacy school because of her eventual arrest, as well as the arrest of my mother. Wire taps and FBI spies were common at family gatherings…where I could have gotten arrested simply by having a cup of coffee...and I couldn't expose who my family was while I remained a student, in part so that the school wouldn't discover my family's history of illegal drug operation and kick me out...there was quite a bit of media involvement...even though I had nothing to do with it...and I wasn't at my sister's house when it was surrounded by a huge SWAT team and drawn guns...but there were many instances when I could have joined the family profession...but I always believed in trying to do the "right" thing.  I was in college for ten years.

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I graduate (gave the speech at Creighton and quoted Bukowski).  However, I end up homeless in Arizona on Christmas Eve in 2006 because I quit Walgreen's...I hated the job so much...even at over $100,000 a year. I moved back to Nebraska to spend more time with my sister's children and because I had no where else to go, and I wasn't sure what to do with myself or career...Later, I try to ping pong back again to Arizona...where my writing came to an abrupt halt with the passing of my niece Dakota.  We were  similar in how we decided to make our way in life except she was better...she believed God was always there for her...but the day I left to try Arizona out again, I got the news that she drowned while rescuing another child...I hadn't even made it half-way through the trip when I had to go back to Nebraska to experience the worst tragedy of my life...and in the middle of just trying to get up and out of bed, my grandfather dies...

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But I do make it back to Arizona…which is where I am located as I write this...and I have a home...which is hilarious how that worked out...because it's a retirement community...I'm 32.

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"It Wasn't Like In The Movies" will spill the details on what it takes to remain religious(?), yet ethical when the sky keeps falling down and there's no home, a drowning, a failed marriage and career…It's about having nothing when I worked so hard to have everything. To find out what happens "in the end" you will have to get "It Wasn't Like In The Movies" and find out...at this point, I plan to self publish my chapbook that contains both prose and poetry, but may look at other avenues of interest.......