Not Quite Like Kansas

Meet: Infinity Malster

"A place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain..." - Judy Garland,   Dorothy.

     Born in a small town in Kansas, I,  Infinity Master,  spent the first three years of my life living in a house with my mother, father, three brothers, and a large German Shepherd named Li Li.

     One day, my parents were involved in a horrible accident with the wood chipper in the backyard that was over eighty years old. Sadly, they lost their lives. My eldest brother of seven years called the cops.  He was terrified and didn't know what to do with our dead parents...well, pieces of our dead parents. My other older brother – only by four years- held me and my six month old brother. Nineteen years has past since then and all that has happened is my siblings, we were separated from each other not even being a month in the system.

     I know about what it was like, that strange place called, home. My first family changed my last name to theirs and had me until I was eleven.  When they could no longer provide for me, so they sent me, reluctantly, back to find a new foster home. I never really found a permanent home after that.

     Many of my foster siblings had terrible episodes from being torn from their families, suffering abuse, or anything, really. That's when I truly became interested in helping others in dealing with their mental state. Almost every day,  someone would come and spill their sorrows and traumatic experiences about the families they were assigned to and ask me for advice. I could never turn them down, how could I?
   
     Soon enough, I was on my own, attending college and starting my life...for real this time. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and that's how I got here. I was determined and persevered through my last bit of college, cramming in all of the classes I could, which is not suggested, but I did it. But, it paid off.  Almost instantly, I received an internship for Dr. Hoff, a world renowned clinical  psychologist, who's headquarters happed to be here in New York.

     After a year of fetching her coffee and busting my butt to get her paper work done, she was ready to add me to her psychology department officially- I was only 23 at the time. Talk about success for a little foster girl, eh? Now 25, I took over Hoff's spot as the head psychologist in our department after she retired...life is good. But, NY doesn't feel like home.