me.

as with any ‘about me‘ section, let me start with the normalcies:

i’m the youngest daughter and child in a brood of kids, in a small midwestern town. i come from a place where if you spit on saturday, the reverend will have it at the pulpit for your redemption come sunday. everyone knows everything about everybody. i only knew one thing: i wouldn’t live here longer than absolutely necessary. so, just like that, i left within days of high school graduation and i never went back.

after college, i made my way into the workforce like any good steward of my community. i came in full force, strong-willed and iron fisted, ready to take on the world. with that attitude, the world kicked me down a few notches more than once and for that, i’m grateful. it took me years to find that gratitude though.

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the next:

i traveled. god, i traveled. i moved around some and eventually found a nest in the mountains out west. it was home. it was a calling. it was everything. have you ever been someplace that the moment you see it, you know that it’s yours? that it looks as though the creator of all things good in this land pointed at a spot on the map and said ‘yes, that one is yours’? that is how i felt the first time i saw the mountains. i knew the mountains would be my home and that they would live in me as i lived in them.

seeing the world was something i always knew i would do. knowing that there was more out there and life beyond what i knew in my bubble was important to who i was as a human. traveling for some people is vacation. traveling for people like me is part of our souls as much as breath is part of our lungs. it’s what gives us life and what brings us back. growing up ‘humble’ (this is a nice way of saying broke as hell), i never saw many places beyond the back of my dad’s head in an old car. and those places were to and from where we had to be. when you have a bunch of kids, it’s tough to go where you want and still manage to get where you need. it takes becoming an adult to understand this.

you’ll learn the story of how i had meningitis and how that is shaping my life today in more posts. and i hope that you learn more than i did in the beginning. that’s important to me.

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looking forward:

i am always looking forward. i believe that the most important part of my journey has been the ability to look forward, put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. no matter the feeling, no matter the hurt and no matter the cost – keep looking forward. so, if you see someone’s back, it’s because they’re looking forward.

i hope you all look forward too and that life, no matter how shitty it is for you, gives you something to look at.

see you soon.