Delusions of Grandeur - Chapter I

Once upon a time...
there was a girl of seventeen.

She was somewhere in between her actual culture and that borderline incestuous subculture that is the "youth group." She was part of a family that was meticulously attendant to every single thing that ever happened. The kind of folks who plan trips to the city around weeksworth of weather forecasts and leave each other notes even when they're just running an errand. (Her parents were both middle children--the ones who "have to have it all together" because their older siblings are a little relationally preoccupied and their younger siblings are a little materially preoccupied.)

She'd had braces. She wanted to be an orthodontist.
She'd "found Jesus" after years of simply attending church with the family. She had a funny experience that she interpreted as a call to youth ministry.
She went to bible college.

She had new visions (that were enthusiastically incubated by those around her in this entirely fictitious scenario, naturally) of herself neatly and successfully completing a four year program and graduating and finding a job that matched all the little classes she took and things she learned, where she could put to good use all those textbooks full of crazy youth night ideas and poster-making skills. She even had visions of maybe someday becoming a professor at such a college, and who knows, maybe even the new Marv Penner.

Meanwhile, the real Marv Penner took a shine to the curious young lady with the black hair and boy-friends in tight pants who liked to hang out with folks from the "actual world" and sneak "non-Christian" music onto their campus radio show. She developed a rash that became more and more irritated every time he or someone in this funny place reacted to their "unusual" lives, not understanding why it was a big deal. She kept taking classes (each reminding her of the last) and making posters (each reminding her of the past) until none of it seemed all that relevant in the end. People started noticing the robotic skills she'd honed--these were attractive assets in some parallel universe she was unwittingly (or maybe initially intentionally) being initiated into.

She felt it was time to go.
She stayed.
And this is where the real story begins.