ABSTRACT
1991 was a growth year. After bouncing about in the working world I’d settled into a job as graphic designer for a group of magazines; no small accomplishment. I had a good rapport with my colleagues, and my first open studio exhibition of paintings had been a success. The stigma left from my hospitalization—comprising two and a half years of my adolescence—had eroded into such a thin crust that only the occasional bout of hypersensitivity or defensiveness threatened to give me away. One day I looked around my office—really a cubicle—and in so doing took a metaphorical look at my life. Stacks of magazines I had designed were piled on shelves; photos of friends and my new boyfriend smiled at me from the bulletin board; color Xeroxes of my paintings were tacked up in neat rows. My Rolodex was filling with names of photographers, illustrators, type houses. When friends asked my mother, “What's your daughter doing?” she could finally say “working” instead of uncomfortably mouthing “freelancing”—her euphemism for struggling.
