CALLAGHAN, Fintan J.

[Deleted]

full name fintan john callaghan. date of birth 18.07.89. home town new york, NY. current city new york, NY. education occupation  veterinary surgeon. ________________________________________ When I think about the best times of my life, they were spent in the treehouse out back from my parents' house. When I was pretty young, maybe seven or eight, my dad had a bit of a health scare that meant he wasn't spending so much time at the Irish pub he and my mom run. But my dad's a worker, and he hated sitting around doing nothing. So he enlisted the help of me and my four older brothers (I've got six in total) to build a treehouse. I'm not sure how useful six year old me was, but in a couple of weeks it was up, and twenty years on that beauty is still up there. Though that summer itself made for a great memory, that treehouse was a fixture throughout my teens. My parents are old school Irish Catholics, and my mom especially liked to work hard to protect our innocence. So we had an 'open door policy' - we were allowed to have girls over and in our rooms, so long as we kept the door open. You can see how this got frustrating when things with my long term girlfriend Thora were heating up. So we'd go to the treehouse. We could have just closed the door in blatant disregard of my mom's rules, but that might lead to no girls being allowed over at all, and even then, my brothers would be banging on the door and shouting obscenities and basically killing the mood. The treehouse somehow avoided the open door rule, maybe because there was no way in hell my mom would climb up the ladder "to that deathtrap". I wound up losing my virginity at sixteen, to Thora, in that treehouse.   Over the years it became increasingly obvious what we were doing up there, 'cause though I did study and studied hard, we'd stagger back into the kitchen looking a little too happy with ourselves, her lipgloss gone and my hair sticking up all over the place. It got to the point that my ma did start to lose it, and one time she came home from work early to yell up to us to stop and think of Jesus. Thankfully, the one time she did this I actually was studying, Thora sprawled out on the bed reading  a book. Might have been a bit cringey otherwise. Turns out that my ma had a bit of a point about getting it on underage. Though I'm still not too worried about going to hell, Thora wound up pregnant and yeah, that put a damper on the whole thing. ________________________________________ AIDAN & NIALL (31), SEAN (29), KIERAN (28) FINTAN (25), CIAN (22), RORY (20) ________________________________________ Thora and I weren't all that alike, but we were compatible. She was - and is - super sporty, and though I fit exercise into my routine and have always played football with my brothers, it wasn't something I was fanatical about the way she is. My discipline was more academic, and that wasn't something she could massively relate to. But she was supportive, and I got into Cornell purely because she was so patient with me. Seriously, if I'd lost her then I'd have been too devastated to work, but I also didn't have the time for a relationship. She made it work and I'm so grateful to her for that. Especially because she found herself pregnant in high school. Telling my parents was the worst. The whole vet school ambition thing made me a bit of a golden boy in the family, and despite the fact they suspected we were up to no good, my parents were almost as in love with Thora as I was. She was a surrogate daughter. So whilst they were devastated and especially worried for my career, they were unwavering in their support of our decision to keep it. I'm no bible thumper, but to me, there was no other choice. It was tough for Thora. Damaging to my studies as it was, I think the prospect of giving over her body to this creature she didn't want or ask for was a heavy burden to bear. She had to give up the sports she loved, and I got to keep on studying as if nothing had changed. It was socially alienating. She got bad morning sickness. It just wasn't a good time for any of us... but that's not to say we were happy when we lost it. My mum had gotten over her initial disappointment and grown impossibly excited. I'm not gonna lie and say I wasn't relieved, but shit, I feel like a monster feeling that way.   Things between Thora and I never recovered. ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________ your name lex. play-by kacey carrig. member group resident.