?? I was born in September 1961 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the middle of three daughters. My parents moved us to Texas when I was one week old.
?? My parents are both retired lifetime college professor Ph.D.s. Dad taught English, and mom taught English, stopped to raise us, then went back and did another doctorate in Spanish/Latin and taught that till she retired. They were exceptional, loving parents. Still are.
?? My grandparents and great grandparents on both sides were either businesspeople, nurses, teachers or doctors and came from Texas and Louisiana.
?? Our family spent summers traveling every year I can remember, alternating domestic and international, until I was in college. We lived in France, Spain, and England during some of my parents' academic study periods and teaching exchanges.
?? I was my family??s ??achiever? whiz kid, but I was also the biggest pain and got in the most trouble, particularly between 14 and 16: wrecking cars, mouthing off to teachers and others, drinking, skipping school, staying out all night, threatening to run away. My older sister was the family good girl, and my younger sister the free-spirited artiste. I now know I was acting out boredom and immaturity and that my parents should have funneled some of my energy into athletics, which I was good at, instead of just high school academics, which I was bored with and rebelling against.
?? I entered Univ. of Texas when I was 16 and finished my first degree at 20 then kept going on and off for the next five years for two more. Higher education turned out to be the much sought-after channel for my energy and immaturity, but I??ve also driven myself nuts with the achiever syndrome. I might have been wiser to enter deep psychoanalysis than medical school this year, but c??est la mois. (that??s me)
?? I struggled with depression and anxiety between 15 and 18 and pondered suicide once or twice. Still have phases of depression/anxiety now, but exercise takes care of that. My parents put me in therapy during my rebellious teen years, and I??ve done further work with an excellent shrink as I??ve felt the need as an adult. I??m convinced this is why I??m as sane as I am.
?? At the urging of friends of my parents, I was enrolled in my hometown??s Miss *City Name* pageant the spring I was 19. Somehow I ended up as first-runner up, which was terrifying for me, as much trouble with anxiety as I had. Seven weeks later, I inherited the city title when the actual winner turned out to be pregnant. So I was slated to go to the Miss Texas pageant the following fall. (Causing deeper panic.) Two months before the state pageant, I was assaulted with a desk chair by a crazy patient at the state hospital where I was in first year of work and training as an EMT: lacerations, bites, fractured vertebrae, closed-head injury, dislocated shoulder, bruised internal organs, broken wrist. That spared me from further pageant obligations, which was a mercy. I??d have had to be hospitalized from pageant anxiety had I not been hospitalized for that beating.
?? I had my first date at 15 and lost my virginity at 17 to the first guy I fell in love with. Went with him for nearly 3 years.
?? I met my second and only other sexual partner, my husband, the year I was 20 and married him two years later at 22, despite the you??re-too-young objections of everyone we knew. We were indeed too young, and we??ve had our rough spots like any couple, but it??s lasted 24 years and is a happy union. He is my surviving best friend of two. The other was my older sister, who died 3 months ago in early November
?? We have one son, who??ll be 21 this May. He is my pride and joy and has grown up to be a kind, compassionate, funny young man (also smart and good-looking, but I??m a little biased)
?? I desperately wanted a second child and had five miscarriages trying to make that happen.
?? I??ve had interesting jobs over the years, from paramedicine to news reporting to teaching to writing, and have seen 22 countries around the world??9 of those were from business trips??and 42 states here in the U.S.
?? I believe I have better emotional intelligence than intellectual and possess uncannily good intuition about people
?? I know I??ve been lucky in my parents, marriage, circumstances, and stability/love. But there??ve also been the miscarried pregnancies. My sister??s death to cancer. That brutal beating. Two close encounters with death, once from peritonitis and once from an almost-discovered-too-late brain malformation. I have serious health issues right now with my heart rhythm and valve endocarditis. My mom is in the early stages of dying of emphysema and congestive heart failure from years of smoking and excess weight. And I??ve seen more illness, death, blood, guts, vehicular fatalities, suicide, family violence, brutality and mayhem than any soft-hearted individual should. Paramedic work does that, as does volunteer work in a women??s crisis shelter and four weeks of volunteer hurricane Katrina medical cleanup work.
?? Someone here told me not long ago that I??d not seen much of real life, but I daresay I??ve seen as much as many soldiers, much less most 45-year-old doctors?? wives. I know what PTSD feels like.
?? The good stuff in my life has anchored me, and the bad things have aligned my priorities and given me compassion for those who endure pain, misfortune, poverty, and illness.
?? That??s who I am. Who are you?
birdgirl73 Reviewed by birdgirl73 on . This is who I am. Who are you? I was born in October of 1968 in Cincinnati, Ohio My Dad owned several small businesses and painted most of his life My Mother was a homemaker/housewife, and then later in life became a child therapist (after the torture I put her through growing up) I'm a product of the 80s Atari, Intellivision, Coleco Vision, Little League Baseball and building forts and fist fighting. Wearing vans and a comb sticking out of my back pocket. I ranaway from home 3 times I quit high school twice(I got Rating: 5