Today is my 6th Annual 39th Birthday. You do the math. The date on the calendar coincides quite nicely with the year I was born: 1967. Again, you do the numbers. I don’t want to be that old, but while I kick and scream and wail about it, there’s little choice.
So today on this minor milestone of birth days, I will tell you more about myself.
- I am the 5th child of six.
- I am the 4th daughter of five.
- I am 16 years younger than the oldest, my only brother.
- I think the oldest children had something to do with the hippie-like name I was given.
- I was raised on a dairy farm.
- I was the child in the family who "communed" with nature the most. I brought home the snakes, tadpoles, ground squirrels, baby rabbits and baby mice (and sometimes hid them in my room).
- I am the middle child of the second family. Same parents, it’s just that there was a seven year gap between child number three and four.
- Three of my sisters would sleep in the same bed, a "full", during the winter to stay warm. We had no heat in our upstairs bedroom.
- I have never broken a bone.
- I have had a concussion with unresolved amnesia (which means I have never remembered those lost moments).
- My mom tells me that everyday before getting on the bus to take me to afternoon kindergarten I would have a hotdog for lunch.
- I never learned to cook.
- I taught myself how to sew.
- I was gangly skinny. Adults would comment all the time how I was likely to blow away with one good stiff breeze.
- I was blond for most of my adolescence.
- I have been a blond, brunette and redhead at some point in my life, and a couple times all three at once.
- I had to be 16 before I could get my ears pierced and at that time, it had to be done in a doctor’s office.
- My first job (with an actual paper paycheck) was washing dishes at the local diner. The diner is still there and running.
- I pierced my third hole by myself.
- I dated one boy from my town. At the end of the date, he wanted a little rub. I said no. There was no second date.
- I lost my virginity at eighteen, a freshman in college. It was terrible.
- When I was little, I wanted to be a veternarian. At 13 we discovered I was allergic to animals.
- I went to school for art and then wanted to be a curator at a museum or gallery.
- I loved reading comic books: Richie Rich, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and Archie.
- I filled three ruler-lined notebooks with images I cut out of fashion magazines. I just recently threw them in the burn pile. I can confirm based on those images 80s fashion was ridiculously ugly, AND is currently en vogue.
- I was the first girl in what was probably 15 years to wear a miniskirt in school. I wore it with a oversized white button-down shirt, black boots with a bandana wrapped around one ankle. Remember, I grew up in a very rural community. Anything other than jeans was sacrilige.
- I am a jane-of-all-trades: dishwasher, waitress, horse-trainer, clothing retail, bartender, ballroom dance instructor, car salesman (sorry, but saleswoman sounds stupid), gas-station attendent, librarian, attorney assistant, medical biller, financial analyst, medical coder. A master of none.
- After five years of dating, I got married a month before I turned 30.
- I had my first baby at 34.
- I had my second baby at 41.
- Between my first baby and second baby, I had four confirmed miscarriages.
- I had three IVF surgeries. Two resulted in pregnancies. One of those was a live baby.
- I do not believe in God, but I am not an Athiest.
- I am liberal.
- I am Pro-Choice.
- I am a Cancer (tough-skinned, but mush inside).
- I was diagnosed with skin cancer in 2010.
- I get so anxious about my children’s future that will someday not include me, I cry.
- I live in our dream home on 10 acres of prairie.
- I am a terrible housekeeper.
- I am good at gardening.
- I pretend to know more than I do.
- I love my on-line community. You have kept me sane during the insanity.
- I will never be as young as I am today. That makes me sad.
- I wrote this a day early, but I gave you a full 45.
Punch Drunk 