I left New Orleans because I was on a mission: I was to become a missionary nun, go forth into the world and do God’s work.

During my first year:

• obediently ate everything that was served to me
• gained 40 pounds
• studied the three vows: poverty, chastity, obedience
• learned how to sew and made my own clothes (by law)
• got used to never seeing TV
• got used to waking up at 5am every day
• prayed a lot
• learned all about asking how high? when I was told to jump

Years Two through Six:

• took annual temporary vows for three years 
• lost 40 pounds 
• took college courses
• worked in the Publications Department
• cleaned many, many bathrooms
• cleaned and waxed miles of hallways
• prayed a lot
• spent a summer in Rhode Island
• traveled alone throughout New England giving vocation talks to high school girls
• discovered myself

Year Seven: 

• decided that I belonged somewhere else
• wrote letter  to the Pope asking to be released from my final (lifetime) vows
• the Pope didn’t argue.  My superiors must have advised him that the convent would be better off without me
• I was headed home.