Why My Life Has Meaning....

Can you recall your first memory?  My first childhood memory was when I was five years old.  It’s the moment I can pinpoint why I don’t like orange creamsicles.  It doesn’t matter why, just that I don’t.  My life has been a good one.  Adopted at the age of approximately four weeks old.  I have two amazing people for parents.  Sally and Gayl...what team.  Although they divorced when I was five, they have ALWAYS been a team when it came to parenting.  I have an older sister, who is also an adopted child in our family.  I learned a lot from Danika.  I learned that little sisters are great creatures to torment.  Little sisters are great to fart on.  Little sisters are fun to play Solid Gold Dancers with and hold concerts in the car with John Denver.  Little sisters are great!  I also learned that older sisters are great best friends, even if we don’t speak for months.  Older sisters are reliable confidants.  Older sisters are great to ‘borrow’ clothes from, but never the shoes (her feet are too small).  I love my older sister, my only sister.  

Throughout my childhood, I had the pleasure of making some amazing friends.  I have traveled and explored much of the western United States and have survived high school trigonometry.  All great accomplishments, but my life really began to take shape my senior year of high school.  My first love, my last year of the public school system and the pending birth of my first child.  Scott changed everything for me.  For the first time in my life I had direction and purpose.  I knew that the minute that the stick turned blue that I was a mama.  There was never a moment of doubt.  Becoming a mother at such an early age definitely came with certain challenges, the biggest being that I had no idea what I was doing!  I must have figured it out though because Scott is almost 19 years old and doing well.  I was blessed a second time when Andrew made his flamboyant entrance.  Two small children and I was barely 20 years old.  By 21 I was divorced, two toddlers and beginning a new chapter of my life.

I started my college career, still not knowing what I wanted to do in the big scary world.  During this part of my life, I was blessed once more with a child.   Dylan came quickly into my life before I signed over my parental rights so a beautiful couple could adopt him.  Making the decision to place my child for adoption was honestly one of the most agonizing decisions I have ever had to make, but it was also the best decision I could have made for my entire family.  My heart continues to ache for him, but I know that he is in a great home with parents who love him and are grateful for the opportunity to raise a son of their own.  Soon after I placed Dylan, I graduated from Idaho State University, I still had no idea what I wanted to do in the big scary world.  So I did the most logical thing I could think of, I got married!  (I know now that logic had nothing to do with it.) After eight years of marriage we ended the union and I once again returned to the world of academia.  (I see a pattern: divorce, go to college)

This is where I now find myself.  Sitting at my table with the MacBook fired up, the hum of the fridge in the background and thoughts running through my head: What will tomorrow bring?  Do I cherish each day?  What do I want people to know?  Who will clean the kitchen?  Do we have toilet paper?  Tomorrow is a new day, new adventures and new stories.  Nothing like a clean slate every 24 hours.

Tabula Rasa.