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Volunteer: Trinity and Kelly only volunteered because Susan made them do it. But they were smart about it. They sifted through possibilities to find the volunteer opportunity that related to their interests ("Clothes and boys!"). They ended up making the Fall Dance ten times more fun. And their donation to Saint Helen’s Home for Girls ended up getting them involved with a "girls rock" series of martial arts classes. Volunteering works best if it matches your interests and yet takes you into a new world.
Date a different kind of guy: Let’s face it: a super-smart Brit isn’t the usual menu selection of a cool ghetto girl. But when Trinity listens to her heart, she realizes Lonnie offers everything she really wants. Going outside your group, looking at every person as a potential friend or date, gets you underneath the surface differences to the place where soul mates live.
Do a wardrobe makeover: Not Trinity’s kind, unless you want a Trinity-sized disaster! But here’s a trick for a color makeover: find some shirts in several different shades of a color: bright, pale, muted. Try one on, and quickly glance at yourself in the mirror. If your eye goes right to the shirt, it’s too bright for you. If your eye goes to your face, but it looks sallow or washed out, that shade is too dull for you. Eventually you’ll discover one shade that draws attention to your face and makes it glow. Stick with that shade (the bright, pale, or muted version of any color you like) for the next six weeks. The compliments just may create an alternate reality!
Find a group outside your school: Lonnie’s international soccer club gave him a place to meet other teens like him, teens who had seen some of the world. That’s one reason he could resist the pressure to conform at Linden High. It’s so important to break out of the walls that confine us and to remember that there’s a broader world out there. Community theatre, music groups, church activities, political groups, jobs outside the fast-food norm . . . any of these can introduce you to people who live completely different lives than you do. And people, new people, are the key ingredient of an alternate life.
Follow your dreams: You can argue about Trinity’s strategies for reaching her dream (in fact, check out the reading group guide on www.leemcclain.com for discussion questions that help you do just that). But you can’t deny that her passion to reunite with her mother kept her moving forward in her life. So what’s your dream? Whether it’s a passion for fashion, a quest for a career goal, or a restless desire to travel, you won’t be satisfied until you do your best to achieve it. That probably means taking small steps each day: register for a design class, check out the career section of your library, do the paperwork for a passport. With your eye on the big prize, the daily steps are easier to take.
Read: No matter how rough your life is now, you can escape to thousands of alternate lives by walking into a bookstore or public library. A biography of someone who faced and won over challenges like yours, a fluffy romance that makes you forget your troubles, or a fantasy that takes you to another world . . . whatever your pleasure, books open the doors to whole new realities. Trinity, geek that she was, loved reading Hamlet. What’s your favorite book?
Read more about Trinity in My Alternate Life.
Egyptian
Spa-tacuolar Spotlight
Emily's
virtual tour of Paris
Valentine Spotlight
Thanksgiving / Amy Kaye Spotlight
Spotlight on You Are SO Cursed!
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