WitFit Word: Tote

"Mom, it's only a four hour drive to Seattle. I could have picked a college on the other side of the country," I reminded her as she huffed for the millionth time on our drive to the University of Washington.

I knew when I started applying to colleges; UW was where I wanted to go. I liked that it was close to home, yet far enough away that no one would just randomly be in the area without advanced warning. It also had an amazing psychology program, which should have my mom proud since I was sort of following in her footsteps. However, my choice in school infuriated my mother to no end, yet no matter how many times I poked or pleaded, she would never tell me why. In fact, if Dr. Renee Swan had her way, I'd be twice as far away going to Washington State University or some Ivy League school on the east coast. Anywhere but UW would have made her happier.

My parent's meeting was entirely by chance. My mom had driven down to Port Angeles to meet with a possible employer and somehow got turned around trying to get back to Seattle. She hadn't realized it until she saw the 'Welcome to Forks' sign, and upon trying to turn around she was actually side swiped. My father was the responding officer and they say it was love at first glance. For as hard of a woman as my mother became, it's hard for me to envision that, but I suppose she was young and dumb once. She got the job in Port Angeles and my parents were married a mere six months later. I came a few years later and despite my begging for a sibling, it never happened.

Life in Forks wasn't amazing, but it also wasn't bad. I favored reading over sports and had several friends who I came to look at as a second family by the time high school graduation came around. My father got promoted to Police Chief around the time I hit third grade and my mom made quite a bit with the practice she took over by the time I hit Jr. High School. I wouldn't say I was spoiled, but I had the ability to be.

Neither of my parents grew up with much money, and while my dad was a pretty simple guy, my mom was just the opposite. As a direct result, my allowance was always ridiculous and I was still fighting over my 'college allowance' she insisted I have. She put herself through school with the help of scholarships, part-time jobs, and loans. You'd think that experience would make her want to teach her daughter the same hard-life lessons, but I seemed to be her only weakness. Despite my aversions to shopping she liked to treat me like her own personal doll. There are pictures littered all over my parent's house with me wearing big frilly dresses and bows as big as my head. For a small sleepy town like Fork, overkill would be the understatement of the year.

Still I think my parents lucked out with having me. A girl in school had the same type of mother and while I never took it for granted, Jessica kind of spun the other direction. It was also no surprise why she walked at graduation with a baby bump ready to pop. The sad part; it was baby number two. But, while she was wild, I was reserved. She liked the attention, and I hated it. She'd party like it was 1999, and I'd tote around my books. And, of course, while she stayed home taking care of a toddler and an infant, I'm in the car with my mom on the way to freshman orientation. My father was trailing behind us only because they insisted I have my car while at college. I didn't understand it, but they paid the huge fee for having freshman parking so who was I to argue?

"Bella, I know you're excited about your freshman year," my mother interrupted me from my internal musing as I turned into the parking lot, "And, I know you've always had a sensible head on your shoulders. But college is different and I want you to remember what I said, okay?"

"I remember mom," I replied almost robotically as I looked for an open spot to park in. A few seconds later we were parked, my car was turned off, and I had a change to look her way. "I got it, no sororities."

She smiled with a nod before getting out meeting my dad with a smile.

I guess it's been a while, huh? Yeah, it kinda has, and I could apologize profusely but does anyone really want to hear my excuses? What it all boiled down to was life got crazy. My girl's grew up-I still don't know how that happened and dropped their naps. They're also in this, "I want to sleep with mommy and daddy stage," so I'm now waking up in the middle of the night to nix that. It's been a blast, I tell ya! But, we did move-but not to Georgia like we were supposed to, instead to a brand new townhouse about 10 minutes from our old duplex. Perk? New house. Con? My OCD about keeping it clean is at an all-time high and we had to do all the moving. Never again…like ever. I won't say Open will ever update again, but I also won't say it will. I know where it's supposed to go, how it's supposed to happen, but then I sit down to write and nothing comes out. I've never really had that happen to me before-I used to be able to sit in a Boot Camp session and pound out 4,000 words in an hour and now I can't get more than 2?

So, I took a break, and now I'm back. I got this idea because of the recent scandal so it'll come with a few warnings. I did some searches to find other sorority/fraternity stories and while I found a few, I didn't find any with the story plotline I wanted to read. I am reading a few, and they're great, but this is exactly how I came up with BI and MM and Thrifty and Confess and Road. Now I'm trying my hand at it. I have never been in a sorority-in fact, I don't think my college actually had any, though I did go to college. It won't be perfect and I will be researching pieces here and there, but like other 'secret societies,' there are traditions, events…etc, that I'll never get right because they don't talk about them. The letter that has been all over the internet for a few weeks now has been entertaining, and then a friend of mine introduced me to Tucker Max (she reminded her of him) and then I started delving into that. All quite interesting, I'll be honest and it sparked my need to write.

If this sucks, it's all on me. No beta, no pre-readers, just a WitFit style story that will not update on a schedule. You may get one chapter every few days or you may get five chapters in a day. As time frees up, I'll write, and won't stop until I need to. Someday's that a lot, someday's it's not.

Hope you enjoy it-leave me a review so I can see if people are still following me. I'm also on twitter SammieLynnsMom is my locked account, SLMom_Open is my open one (mainly for couponing and blogging) and of course, my fandom facebook.