Independent Woman pt. 1
Many people have told me over the years that I should write a book. I always just laughed and said, “Yeah, maybe” and then continued with whatever we had been talking about. But as my life has kept unfolding and each time another person has given the same suggestion, I have finally come around to the idea, sort of. Although it may be book worthy in the future, for now a blog will suffice.
Hello, my name is Haley Topp and this is my blog.
For the first installment I think a little backstory is due.
I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio with divorced parents. I can’t remember a time in my life when my parents were together. I lived in two cities, had two different groups of friends and thought that was just the norm. To me, everything was going just fine until my mother passed away during childbirth, giving birth to my youngest brother. I am my father’s only child so, after she passed it was just me and him. Everything was good until I was about 12 and I was diagnosed with Epilepsy. Our rocky road started then and has been ongoing ever since. By 18, I moved out on my own (because my father got married and moved to Pennsylvania to be with his new wife and her two daughters) and I subsequently started working full time in restaurants. I had always been artistic as a child and was deeply interested in fashion, I had been sewing and making things since I was eight, but my 18-year-old self was convinced I could never make money in fashion so instead I opted for the healthcare profession. After my less than impressive freshman year, I decided to take the fall semester off and go backpacking around Europe for a month by myself, at 19. It was the first time in my life I felt free, no one could tell me I couldn’t go because after all I was paying my own bills, college and otherwise. I was gone; London, Paris, Rome, Naples, and Athens. Once I came home, I worked the remainder of the semester and waited for the spring session to start. When I was finally back in school, I felt truly unsatisfied with the path I was on and as time went on I cared less and less about school, started partying more and more with the line cooks after hours and subsequently started to fail my classes. In 2012, I made the decision to drop out instead of keep spending my money on something I didn’t know whether not I wanted to pursue. This did not go over well in my family.
In my family, which consists of my father, his four siblings, their husbands and wives and their kids, you DO NOT drop out of college. My father didn’t graduate college, neither did my mother but this is why, in my family’s eyes, it was imperative for me to graduate from college. I had a lot of pushback, but again, I was paying the bills so, they didn’t have much of a leg to stand on. I danced, drank, partied, traveled and ate through all the money I was making for the next three years. However, at 22 I had an epiphany. I will never forget this moment: I was working at my restaurant job, a place that had many career servers (absolutely no shade, it is a very lucrative profession) and it was the switch between brunch and dinner service. I was vacuuming the floor and in front of my eyes my life flashed: it was 10 years in the future, I was working at the same restaurant, making the same money, and living in the same situation. My life hadn’t progressed in the slightest and from the look on 32-year-old Haley’s face, she was not happy. That night I went home and applied to the Kent State University fashion program.
In the fall of 2015, at the age of 23, I finally went back to school as a fashion design major at the third-best fashion school in the country. I loved every single minute of it. I still worked full time because baby girl still had the bills to pay but I loved it. One summer break, I did a month-long road trip across the United States. I ended up going to school in New York city for a semester and working for Christian Siriano. Following that, I studied couture techniques in Paris for a semester. In August 2018, I came back to Ohio, made my thesis zero-waste collection and earned my BFA in fashion design, with honors. After graduation, my boyfriend and I moved to Columbus for better job opportunities.
In July of 2019, I asked Rob if he would marry me and in August we eloped. Again, my family was not thrilled with the choices I had made but yet again, I was financially an independent woman. In September, I was hired in a contractor position at a fashion brand as a textile lab technician. I showed my sustainable collection at New York Fashion Week and in October I made a small collection for Highball Halloween. By December, I was hired as a full-time employee. Things were moving fast but it was all so exciting, everything was finally looking up!! I was put on salary, I received health insurance and I was now in a position that I was hungry to learn more about, grow in, and truly develop.
January 2, 2020, a day that will live in infamy. At the stark age of 27, I was diagnosed with stage three Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. At this point, I am done with my six months’ worth of chemo treatments, but I am in the waiting phase before I have my final scan to let me know if I am in remission or not. My plan for this blog is to talk about the nitty gritty of being young, newly married and having cancer. But I also want to share some of my crazy stories, talk about our two cats and our dog, the trials and tribulations of having a terminal illness in the midst of anti-maskers and hopefully have a good laugh here and there.
I will be here every Sunday and I hope you will too.
H.