Saturday, January 02, 2010

My Life: A Thumbnail Sketch

I wrote this for another reason, but it occurs to me that you know little about my life, so I thought I would share it here as well.


I was born in Kenmore, NY and lived near there in Tonawanda close to Buffalo, NY till I was twelve. That place had about 90 inches of snow a year. I loved it!! Then we moved to Buena Park, CA.


We were in CA for four years. Our family moved because my father pioneered new sales territories for his company, then gave them to someone less experienced once they were developed. I missed snow bigtime, but I really enjoyed my high school years there--I didn't have a lot of friends, but I had good ones.


(One amusing thing I found as we moved around was the difference in language between the east coast and the west coast. In New York we wore sneakers, but in California they were tennis shoes-while in Indiana they were either one. We carried bags of groceries in the east, while in the west and midwest we carried sacks, and lastly, we put our feet up on a hassock in the east, while we rested our feet on a footstool in the west and midwest. There were other differences, but I won't digress any more.)


After my sophomore year we moved to Indianapolis, IN. When we told people we were moving, everyone including me thought we were moving to a farming community. Not true--Indianapolis is a regular city right in the center of the state. The last of my high school years were spent in a rather elitist public high school that I didn't enjoy.


When I graduated I tried my hand at college in a small town (at that time) in southern IN on the Ohio River. I spent a year and a half all told on my formal higher education, studying philosophy, sociology, psychology and English composition (leaving the requirements for later, which may be why I didn't finish). Originally I planned to become an elementary school teacher, but there were too many already who were having a hard time finding jobs, so I didn't want to go there. Then I considered becoming a social worker, but there were already enough policies I knew I'd come in conflict with, so I decided that wouldn't work. Same with psychology.


After leaving school, I started as a mail room clerk for a retirement pension fund and worked there for three years. During this time I became a committed Christian, met my future husband, and got married in 1976 at age 25 to a social worker.


All I'm going to say is that it was a very rough marriage, but I now have three grown children who are wonderful men from that time. I separated for the second time in 1999 when they were almost grown, and he didn't want to work on the marriage and divorced me in 2004.


There have been many events during and since my marriage like an auto accident in 1983 where my father died and I lost a baby girl in the womb, a tornado in 2002 that destroyed much of my apartment complex but left my apartment intact (they closed the complex and I had to move), the time I visited some friends in Florida just as a hurricane hit (when I flew down I thought it would miss them, but it changed course), the year my apartment flooded at Christmas, and some other things, but why bore you with details? Life has been anything but dull, and it is still interesting today.


I wrote a web page for years until they shut down the free part of the site. Before too many more years pass, I am expecting to write for publication--I almost think I may have learned enough in life to have something to share :) . While still growing and changing, I'm looking to see where God and life take me next. I want to enjoy life and live it well because our lives are part of a whole story the Lord is writing and I want to read all of it some day.


1 comment:

midspoint said...

More tears!!!!!!!! We must be long lost sisters... LOL

I love reading your writings,

Love ya!