Graduation 2017

Graduation 2017 by audreybarnes featuring tarte

New Orleans Lookbook 2017

New Orleans Lookbook 2017 by audreybarnes featuring Marc Jacobs

I Remember...

My Dad left in 2004, I don’t remember the day he left, just he was gone and everything was different. I remember sitting in my room waiting for him to open the door and come home.  I remember the days turning into nights and nights bringing the pain, I remember tears streaming down my face hoping my dad would pick up the phone. I remember the weeks turning into weekends, the three of us, plus our 150lb coon hound, piling into our 1999 suburban at 5 am to see him. I remember the endless boat rides and car rides. I remember the phone calls to the attorney’s, them trying explaining the situation. I remember never staying in one place. I remember each house we ever lived in. I remember the evictions, the constant moving, the bills not being payed because my dad couldn’t put down a bottle. I remember nights with my grandma, falling asleep on her lap watching Showtime. I remember having to sleep in a VW van behind our house because it was either that or the floor. I remember the 13th birthday I spent sitting in the car, not allowed to come out all day, a pancake thrown in the window at one point. I remember the screaming, the contact of his hand to my face when I couldn’t do what he asked, the fear I felt constantly as I hid from him. I remember the relief I felt being back in my mother’s beat up suburban, hugging the seats the whole way home. I remember the lights going out and the water turning off and our surprise sleepovers at Mrs. Jeanne’s house. I remembered it all. I remembered when it changed. 

*FULL DISCLOSURE*

HAS BEEN EXAGGERATED SIGNIFIGATLEY

My Island

I never like to leave the small island I grew up on. It’s my home, it’s been my home for as long as I can remember. It’s where my mom and dad met, where they got married, where I was born and where I was Baptist, where I had my first kiss, my first job. It’s where I can go, walk around and see my friends, my parent’s friends and my grandparent’s friends, grabbing their morning coffee or their daily donut at the Downy flake. It’s a place where I can go and feel safe in a world that doesn’t seem to like me very much. So I don’t like to leave the little sanctuary I've built very often.

My family has been on the island since the early 1940’s. My grandmother went out there to escape the war. She bought an old fisherman’s cottage about a mile down surfside road. Back in those days, Nantucket was uninhabited, she had one neighbor on her left and marshland on her right. The nearest store was 6 miles away, but for the island, that’s was pretty far. They still had the railroad then to get around, so every Sunday she would take it into town, collect her weekly rations and be on her way. It became her home, which later became my mother’s home, which later became mine. I grew up listening to her stories and as a bug eyed child longed for the day that I could go home again and start my own adventure.

We moved around a lot as a kid. After my dad left, it was just the three of us, my mom, my sister and I. He moved back out to the island to live with my grandparents and we ended up staying in North Andover, a town surrounded by highways and corrupt with drugs. So my mom did what her mom did before her, and sent us to the safest place she knew, Nantucket. By then my dad had started drinking heavily and couldn’t be bothers with his two little kids, so we spent most of our time with my grandmother. We were her babies, she love us just as much as we loved her. She taught me everything. How to sew, how to garden, how to get gum out of my hair when I accidently cut a huge chunk out and how to hide my bra strap in a dress that didn’t fit right. She was our world. When she died last October I was distraught, I had lost the only person, other than my mom, who thought I could be somebody one day. I was left disowned by my grandfather, shut out by real father with nowhere left to turn but back to My Island.

I moved out to the island on my own when I was 17. My grandmother sick and my grandfather unattached, I was unable to stay with them for the last time. So I did what I had to do. I lied about my age, I found a room to rent in the ice skating coaches house, packed up my little dolly mobile and moved out there. I had finally had a place on my own, making real money to support myself. I got a job at the local bike shop working on bikes and found out I was pretty good at it. Before that I had never really been good at anything other than being a screw up. I had a ton of people waiting to watch me fail, so I did the only thing I really know how to do, I proved them wrong. I went out my first summer spent five months on the island working as hard as I could, became really good at my job and by the time I left that summer, I had a win under my belt. For the first time ever, I wasn’t a screw up. There I was respected and looked to as a leader and a mentor. My past experiences helping me gain the confidence to get through the next year.        

But here, in the real world, I’m a nobody. I’m the girl who dropped out of high school, the girl who went to rehab, I'm the girl that nobody believed in. But this past year, I did something I never thought I would do, I went back to high school. And this time I am going to finish.

Leaving the island this year, I was terrified, for the first time in my life I had chance to change my path. No longer was my life going to be managing the local Cumberland farms or Stop&Shop.  It was college, it was my dream of becoming a teacher or a writer, starting to become a reality. For the first time I had someone other than my mom tell me I was going to amount to something someday. It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s the good kind, the kind that makes you want it more, and I’m honestly terrified. On Nantucket, I was a somebody, and now once again I’m a nobody. But that’s okay, because this time, I’m ready to become somebody again. But this time in the real world.

The Summer I met Dolly- Chapter One

  

     

   I didn't know what to expect the first time I drove my rickety old Honda civic onto the Steamship that summer. I didn't really have any expectations in general. After barely making it through highschool, I was finally looking forward to just starting over somewhere, anonymously. After battling an eating disorder and the demons from my past, I was ready to face reality.And honestly, I needed a win in my corner. So my mother did what her mother did before her and made plans to ship me off  to Nantucket for the summer. A  few weeks later, I packed up my old 2000 Honda Civic and set off for the island.I got a job working at the bike shop downtown with one of my Grandpas old friends and  started  working  two days after I arrived. I had no idea what I was doing. I had no friends,no backup, just me.This was it,I was finally moving out and I felt like I was finally able to breath again.

       I met Kathy Davis on June 7th, she introduced herself with her "Hi I'm Kathy" smile that I soon became oh-so familiar with, Her camel covered harem pants and hipster style glasses matched up  with her quirky personality and curly blonde hair. In an instant we both knew that we had been thrown together for a reason. It was like God was finally saying “Hey! You know what? You're gonna be okay.” He sent me my partner in crime.  Kathy Davis, in some ways, saved my life. Since the day I met her I have never again felt alone. I can put my whole trust in her and know I have hers. Our laid back personalities complemented each other beautifully.That's why I liked her so much. Her intelligence and her worldly personality stood her apart from anyone i had ever met before. She was interesting, she challenged my mind and instantly we became like two peas in a pod. 

Kathy and I didn't have many other friends on the island, so we spent most of our free time in my Civic just driving around; daily rides home from work, chasing the sunset at fisherman's beach and visiting  my childhood home on Sunset Hill. We spent more time driving around singing and dancing to Magics “Rude” than we did at our apartment.Dolly became more than a car to the both of us; she became our ticket to freedom. She took us away from our dysfunctional lives and reminded us that there was more to life than just surviving. Every dent made, every laugh laughed a little too loud, every bad day, Dolly always came through. 

              For a long time, there was no Audrey without Dolly, her distinctive pink flower sticker on the back and shag-style steering wheel cover  represented everything about who I was.You could walk by Dolly, look inside and be told everything you would ever need to know about me, leftover sand included.I couldn’t tell you, in so many words, who I was or where I where I was going but that was the great thing about Dolly, I didn't have to.She was showing me who I was without me even realizing it. Dolly was safe,she let me be myself again.And because of her i gained the friendship of a lifetime. Everything happens by chance, I’m just glad I got the chance to meet Dolly.