Capture it; Remember it

I really hate that question you know. Growing up, you’re always expected to know what you want to be later in life, and I believe that fear has grown since entering college. How am I supposed to know WHAT I want be if I’m still figuring out WHO I want to be?

My name is Hope. Hope LaFever (I know, it’s a pretty rad last name). Roll call I’ll answer to Diana, but call me Hope. As of right now, I’m about to enter my twenty second year as a senior here at MTSU. I’m majoring in media and entertainment with a concentration in photography and minor in journalism. So, a photojournalist you could call me. You can find my work on most social media sites using the hashtag #HopeLaFeverPhotography. I’m a single cat mom to a beautiful boy named Meredith, and a bearded dragon named Bernie. Blogs give us the freedom to write however we feel, and right now, I’m feeling let down by the American Healthcare System. I am a type one diabetic and an #Insulin4All advocate, so you may see some rants and statistics from time to time about that. I am also a longtime and lifelong fan of Miss Taylor Swift, so here work may popup from time to time as well. Poetry is the way to my heart, so if I find something that makes me feel, I’ll probably cry, take a nap, and then post about it. I’m all for standing up for those without a voice. Last semester, my reporting professor said something and it’s stuck with me ever since. He said (paraphrasing) ‘You all have found a voice. Remember to do stories on the forgotten satires, the voiceless’. And I carry that with me through all aspects of life, advocating especially. In the words of my favorite author, John Green, “If we refuse to roar on command, they will notice, and they will change…your attention is powerful, and it is yours”. It’s not hard to be kind to one another. And to use your privilege to bring awareness to the voiceless.

I guess the one thing that establishes me among from other people is my undying love for my cat, Meredith.

Meredith in my pants – 2016

I got Meredith after I had recently went through a really tough breakup (all of the love songs are true. At 16, you really do feel like your world is crumbling before you) and getting him gave me a sense of Hope.

About 3 months go by, and I’m loving this new cat of mine. I’m also a huge fan of Taylor Swift, and if you know anything about her, you will also notice that she too has a cat named Meredith. This was my opportunity to be just like my role model. So I decided to name my cat after her cat.

We take Meredith to the vet and that’s when I got the news that my she was really a he, but he was already accustomed to the name, and I was so in love with having my own Meredith that I decided to keep his name the same. He was still the same cat to me.

Mere has always been a stand-offish cat though. In true Leo nature, he doesn’t want attention unless her demands it first. He doesn’t like other animals, and he likes to hide in places he knows he’s not supposed to be.

Every now and then, he will decide on cold nights that sleeping next to mom is the better option, and getting to wake up next to my ball of fluff automatically brightens my day.

Meredith has always has strange traits about him. He turns his nose up to any people food, including fish and tuna, even milk. He just refuses to eat or drink them. But he LOVES salty foods. Any time I have chips or crackers, I can find my ball of fluff pitches on the counter waiting for me to turn away for a second, or sometimes he feels he should also have a nipple, even if I’m still eating. He also loves to eat my vegan yogurt, the blueberry kind specifically. As soon as the top comes off, he knows as soon as I’m done I’ll let him have the remaining side contents. I guess something about the coconut gets him going.

Meredith on FaceTime with his girlfriend in France, Avril

I’ve recently gotten a new cat, and at first Meredith was not a fan of him. They are both around the same age (Meredith turned 5 on August 7th of this year) so for the first few days, they had some vocal words about each other. But as the week went on, the two would come closer and closer together, smelling each other and having staring contests, and I believe the vacuum cleaner really brought them together as they would both huddle in fear over it. Fry has recently needed an E cone, so that has gendered his mobility and eating habits. And for some reason that really set Meredith off the edge. Now I am back at square 1 trying to get them to be nice again. Any suggestions?

Fry (in the cone) and Meredith (not in the cone) catching up on Z’s

Meredith (on left) and Fry (on right)

Who am I?

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