30 years ago my mom was almost five and a half months pregnant with me, kiddo number two! My sister, Liz, was all of 9 months old, and I can only imagine the thoughts my incredible Mom was having. Mom never wanted kids, so if Liz was an accident, I was a undoubtedly a long list of words like catastrophe, blight, and woe! Haha. Now, I say those things as lovingly as one can. Our Mom has never treated us as if we were mistakes, but she has always made it clear that she never wanted kids. My sister and I didn't fall too far from the tree on that one. Although I have one incredible niece, Liz is in no hurry to knock out a sibling for Roslynn, and despite my in-laws best efforts, I am in no hurry to yield her a cousin.
But I digress, back to my story. Little did Mom know, the world just couldn't wait for me, and on August 17th I was going to make a grand entrance. Mom isn't the best with pain, so I tried to teach her a lesson. I put her though 48 hours of labor and nearly took her life, as well as my own. You see I wanted to enter the world feet first and face down. Turns out the doctors don't like that, and until I went into fetal arrest the doctors wanted that to be different. But I won! Feet first, face down, and a few minutes of not breathing, and they let me have it my way! Mom was down for the count and in need of a few blood transfusions, but she made it! Not only that, the crazy lady would have another kid 8 years later...also an accident! Someone should have explained that you have to take your birth control daily if you want it to work. I don't think she understood it!
Since my lungs were underdeveloped, I struggled a lot as a kid. I was in and out of the hospital with pneumonia for the first 8 years of my life. But in between bouts of illness I was a lively, loud, seemingly bottomless pit of energy sort of child. My father didn't enjoy my banter, but for some unknown reason I decided I was going to stand up to him as often as I could. I always wanted to stand up for something, even though I had nothing to stand up for. That didn't go too well and his temper mixed with my button pushing got me into a lot of trouble. My father was abusive and his religious zealot side infuriated me. I had a number of ideas as to how I believed the world worked, and if it didn't work that way I simply did not care. My world was going to work that way. At 12 my parents divorced and I was free of the fear of him.
Shortly there after, while being my sisters constantly following puppy, I found something that would end up completely consuming my life. Running. It was a way to take out aggression, to compete, to finally be really good at something, and to put my unwarranted desire to fight for things to some good use. Because of running I came to know and love a God, that seemed much different than the one I remember our father throwing in our faces as kids. I choose to spend time overseas working with missions organizations and getting a much broader understanding of the world than I had previously known. I learned that along with running, loving people is truly my passion. Sometimes I over do things a bit and my obnoxious side comes out. I have to reel it back in and realize I am smothering people, which turns out is creepy, not so much showing the love I have! Lol. My family supported both of my passions by allowing me to travel and taking me all over the place in Popa and Grandma's RV, or in Sam's (my step dad) car to race. We had some fun times getting to races and it made me feel important that they were, and still are so involved in my pursuit of the sport. Running brought me to Akron in 2002 and I fell in love with a place for the first time. I met many of my friends here, including Ryan, and my running blossomed into something that has lead me to experience a number of great things. Because of running I have met more people than I can count that make everyday such a blessing. I have fallen in love with those people, spandex, clocks, hills, pavement, blue lines, data, legs, shoes, peoples ability to dream, the feeling of winning, the silence in the early morning, the sound of shoes on pavement, girl miles, reflections in puddles when it rains, spring, fall, doing something you didn't believe you were capable of, coffee, laugher, shade, and being sore (just to name a few). I have done a lot of things that have made some incredible memories, a lot of things I look back and think were stupid, some things I shouldn't have, yet I would do them again. I have been tougher than I thought I could be somedays, and more fragile than a plate of china others. By and large I have enjoyed it all along the way.
In 30 years I grew into a healthy adult, who is rarely sick, ALWAYS early, constantly finding ways to again try to kill my Mom (Via heart attack with my crazy endeavors), a little (or maybe a lot) crazy, passionate, and all in all filled with a desire to run and love people, so not much has changed. HAHA!
My first (almost) 30 years have been fun. When I was young I thought I would be very mature and grown up at 30. I am not. Most of the time my Peter Pan side gets the best of me, and I enjoy it that way. I plan to keep it up! I am excited to see where my next decade of life takes me. I have full faith in 10 years I will still be the luckiest person I have ever met!
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