more than you ever wanted to know about me
I like having a captive audience - I love to talk. =)
Here are things you need to know about me:
- I was born on January 1, 1981. That makes me 11 months minus 1 day younger than David.
- I was born in (West) Germany - my dad was in the military for 21 years, and I was born while he and mom were stationed overseas.
- I have two younger sisters, Melissa (22) and Leah (14). I was born first, and I've always acted like it. =) I fit the oldest child birth order profile/sterotype very well.
- I am an army brat, in just about every sense of the word.
Because we moved around so much when I was a kid, I'm good at that kind of drastic change. In fact, I actually like it. =) I enjoy going new places and meeting new people and getting fresh starts. Moving from place to place, you learn two things: 1) how to make people love you by being what they want you to be, and 2) to just wait out the annoyances and fights you have - eventually you'll move and never have to see those people again, so you don't have to be completely real with them and you don't have to work out your differences. I spent most of my life operating under those two precepts, and I'm just now learning how tough it is being vulnerable - open and honest about who I am, regardless of the power that gives others to hurt me - and how tough it is to stick it out in long term relationships. Recently (the past two or three years), I've started learning how to make and keep friends - real friends.
This is the biggest lesson I've ever learned - I thought it was important to write here because it shapes so much of who I am and who I'm becoming. But perhaps you would rather I write about my life bio-style...
So, about my family:
My parents are still married. They're great - they have exactly the kind of marriage I want to have, they are exactly the kind of parents I want to be. My sisters are two of my best and dearest friends, though we've certainly had our sibling rivalries. My favorite thing about my immediate family: I love how much we make each other laugh. It's music - laughter is - and is so important!
I have one grandfather, the other died before I was old enough to know him. I was blessed to have three grandmas (2 natural and one step), but all of them passed away when I was in my teens.
There are a lot of broken relationships, failed marriages, devastating deaths caused by bad lifestyle choices, crippling addictions - in my family history. My parents are living, breathing examples of how history does NOT have to repeat itself, and with the strength of will passed on to me through my parents and by the grace of God, I plan on following their example in creating a NEW family history.
Now, how I ended up in Indiana:
I went to something like 9 schools before I graduated from high school - 3 separate schools in just 7th grade. I have never felt like any location was a home. (A theme: my FAMILY is my home, not a building, not a town, not even a state.) My parents settled in Pennsylvania when my dad retired in '96, and I went right on moving. I spent my couple of years there and moved to Indiana for college. Then I went back to PA after graduating for about 8 months, while I looked for a job. I wasn't doing so well there (with no peers and certainly no activities outside my family, extrovert me was withering away), so I packed up my things and moved to Indianpolis.
I moved in with Tom and Daisy Eden, and then moved to share an apartment with roomie Bethany. Tom is the pastor of my church, Woodruff Place Baptist Church, the church that David and I will be attending and serving with once we're married. I met Tom and Daisy while I was in college - stayed with them for a few weeks during an internship. I fell in love during those few weeks with the people, with the church, with the ministry, and decided that *here* was where I needed to be as I left my parents' home.
That's how I ended up here - you can read in a different part of this website how I ended up with David. =)