When you live in a small town, you live on an island, a small square of people surrounded by unpopulated lands. You hear news and rumors of other places, but it’s hard to know that how they live and how they think is different from how you do. You invent your own rules for yourself. When you’re in high school you think, why would anyone care about entrance exam scores? Those things don’t matter to me. Why would anyone care about ivy league schools? Those places aren’t important to me.

What is important to you is dandelions that have gone to seed. A stack of books to get you through the evening. Cups filled with Lipton’s tea with teaspoons of sugar stirred in. 

And then—

That’s not how the world works, is it, you find.