I stumbled upon this on my computer today and I don't know that I ever posted it anywhere.
1. Mom retiring very earlyFrom the moment I was six weeks old until just before I turned 9, my mom worked shift work at our local Dupont plant. She kept me with her whenever she could (long-weekends off from work and her vacation time), but for the most part I stayed with my grandma. Even there it was just me and Mema, because grandpa worked shift work at Dupont too. One afternoon, when I got off the bus at my grandma's house, I noticed Mom's car parked in the driveway. Her car being there was very strange because it was the middle of the week and I usually only saw her on the weekends. But I just thought, "Neat! Mom's here!" Once I was settled in for the afternoon after the intial "Hey how are ya?" and "How was school?", Mom asked me, "How would you like to have a full-time mom?" I gave her a rather puzzled look and she went on to explain. Earlier that day when she was at work she realized she didn't have any tylenol with her, so she headed up to the staff nurse's office to get some. Mom has arthritis in her knees and by this time had already had surgery on both of them (later on she had a second surgery on one of them). In a flurry of action, the nurse deemed that she should be retired on disability. SWEET! Mom didn't have to work anymore. Needless to say after 8 years of only getting to spend quality time with my mom in little spurts of long-weekends and vacations, I got to be by her side almost 24/7, especially once she started volunteering at my school.
Mom and I became very close after her retirement. She became much more than just a parent; she became my closet friend for many years to come.
2. Getting my first violinWhen I was in early elementary school, I rode the school bus. Therefore, I got to know the older kids on my route. One of those older kids (three years older than me) had been a violinist since she was three. She was an excellent player and I knew it. One day while we were walking from the bus to the school building, I built up enough nerve to ask her, "When can I learn to play violin?" She kindly replied, "You can take violin in the 4th grade." Great! But I was only in second grade. I had to get through the rest of that school year and through another one before I'd get to join the school's orchestra.
My very very first violin was a tiny white plastic thing that my grandparents had bought me for Christmas one year. I liked to 'play' along whenever Grandpa played his classical music records on the stereo. He got a real hoot out of it. There is a famous picture of me (well...famous in our circle of family and friends) in jeans, little red cowboy boots, and a ponytail holding my little fiddle standing in my grandparents' living room. I looked so serious and just like I knew what I was doing. I think I was only three or four at the time.
I still remember going with Mom to the school one afternoon at the end of my 3rd grade year to sign up for the beginning orchestra class. It was so exciting! I was measured for a violin (3/4 sized) and one was ordered for me, though I wouldn't get to see it until I started school in the fall. Waiting was horrible!
Then came the day when I was finally in the fourth grade and I finally had my very own violin. From that moment on, I had something special that would stay with me for the rest of my life even if I didn't do anything professional with it. Learning to play the violin was something I had waited for for so long and once I finally got past that horribly awkward period, I realized I really enjoyed playing for myself.
3. Entering my first chat roomComputers were just becoming affordable and attainable during my early high school years. My grandma bought her computer first, and was the first to get internet access. After having to drive to Mema's house daily and spend HOURS there just so I could get online, it wasn't too long before Mom decided to get one for us too. A few days after we brought it home, it was hooked up to the world wide web and I entered my first chat room provided by Prodigy (one of the first ISPs). I just happened to stumble into a role-playing chat room. In these RP rooms, the chatters would assume characters and interact with each other forming very complex story lines, almost like a written soap opera. From these chatrooms I met some of my longest lasting, though very long distance, friends.
The chatroom, for me, slowly evolved into the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) complete with graphics, not just text! My first RPG, and really the only one I've ever gotten deeply into, was EverQuest. This game was introduced to me by two of my chatroom friends during my summer stay with them in Texas. From that dear $14.95 a month game, I met my future husband. Ah! Love at first sight! (Though, at the time, he was a blue faced barbarian and I had no idea what he looked like in real life.)
4. Going to Legislator's SchoolWhen I was a sophomore in high school, I was chosen to take part in a two-and-a-half-week program just down the road at ECU called Legislator's School. This was my first experience being away from home for any length of time. I made a few new friends (though I only kept up with one after the program ended) and I had an ok time (the walk from the dorm to the cafeteria in the morning for breakfast was over a mile and included climbing a huge hill which killed my poor knees). There wasn't anything spectacular about the experience other than I didn't see my mom for an entire two and a half weeks. That was definitely a first since she had retired.
The next summer I was chosen to participate in Governor's School, three hours away in Winston-Salem. Because I had successfully been away the previous summer for two and a half weeks, I felt brave enough to conquer the six weeks of being away from home for Governor's School. This in turn gave me the courage to (gasp!) GO AWAY FOR COLLEGE as I had been planning to go to ECU and live at home. But, instead, I went to Salem College, spending a good portion of the year nearly 200 miles away from my mom and grandparents.
5. Going to college away from home instead of just down the roadBeing away from home for college forced me to be with other people, to learn new streets, eat new foods, and try new things. I changed so much from the little home-body I was in high school. The only time I ever stayed out late in high school was for the prom, and for senior prom we were all back home well before midnight. College gave me the courage and forced me to be on my own and set my own rules. It also proved to me (and to everybody else we knew) that Mom would be fine without me underfoot all the time, which led to me staying in Winston-Salem after I graduated. She likes me being away because it gives her somewhere to go. She loves coming up to see me, and now loves coming up to see her son-in-law too.
A year or so ago the building I work in underwent construction for a new addition. I could see most of the construction work from my own second story window. Watching all the work was fascinating, especially when the huge crane came in to put up the steel framework of the new wing.
so when I was finished, I printed off a copy of my favorite picture, wrote my name, the date, and location on the back of it, and ran downstairs to give it to him. Unfortunately, he had already gotten back in the crane. Luckily, another guy was close enough to the fence that I called him over and asked him if he'd give the picture to the crane guy.
