The Beginning

I don’t want to give the impression that my parents didn’t pay any attention to me… I was certainly well loved.  I was one of those lucky kids to grow up with parents who were always in love with each other and cared about their kids’ well-being.

I easily became my own best friend, being the youngest girl of three and then having a younger brother to compete with.  My parents always told people that they had three girls and a terror – I wonder if that gave my brother a complex?

Being the introverted one didn’t really become noticeably painful until my early teens, when my parents moved us to a teeny, tiny town in rural Pennsylvania after my father retired from the Army.  To 3 out of 4 of us kids, the atmosphere was full of pettiness, jealousy, and misery – you know, all the great things that make up small-town living!  Other than my one sister, who could make friends with a rabid grizzly bear in order to sell it a fur coat, we were all happy to move on.

We ended up in an equally small town, less than 90 miles away from the other.  What this new town lacked in blatant snobbery, made up for in yokel ignorance.  This was a big improvement!  My poor parents are still trapped there while my Dad works on a state retirement to go with the federal one.  He’s always said that next will be a municipal retirement and then he’ll fulfill his dream of becoming a Wal-Mart greeter…  But after being in the Army and then working at a state prison, I somehow doubt that’s going to work out for him.

In the end, all of us kids went to college and escaped.  Well, except my brother, the terror.  For some reason he has fully embraced his small-town existence.  He’s even working at the same prison as our father.  Yes, I did say “working at,” not “a guest of.”  This distinction is important, as it means he has exceeded many expectations.  Ok, well maybe we didn’t ultimately expect him to end up in jail, but there were a couple of close-calls, so we are really proud.

I did eventually “find myself,” but as a kid I watched my sisters to see what I should be doing.  And that became a competition for me without really knowing it.  My oldest sister was labled “the smart one.” So what did I try to be?  The smarter one!

My second oldest sister was labeled “the artistic one.”  So of course, I did it bigger and better!

So who am I now that I’m no longer “the smartest and most artistic one?”  Good question.  I guess I’m a self-driven engineer, a step-mother, and a zoo keeper.  These things are all me, and no one else.  Ok, so maybe I got my work ethic from my father, and my parenting skills from my mom, but the zoo-keeper thing?  That one’s all me, I swear!