Life Shaping Events

I'm on a Listing Kick!

Sometimes I wake up with the alarm and lay in bed letting my mind just jog around my memories. Yesterday the thought of life-shaping events came into my head. The more I thought on it, the more events I found and questioned why I thought they were life-shaping relevant.

Let me share some :) And like most things I do....in no particular order. (aside from perhaps a little chronologically because that just helps me sort :))

1. Falling off a pier..sort of. When I was really little (before memory actually) my parents, Kellie and I went for a walk on a pier, my parents admired the surroundings for .2 seconds and looked back to see Kellie pointing downwards. There were my little fingers clinging to the edge.

2. Hearing that we were going to get a new sister...and our reply "but we don't need a sister, we need a puppy". Looking back I'm glad we opted for the sister :)

3. Building an amazing fort with the other ramshackle neighborhood kids and my sisters. It was a glorious child-sized escape.

4. Attending several elementary schools before staying put when I reached 3rd grade. Luckily my built in sister friends followed me to all my new houses.

5. Being bossed around by Kellie, but always beating her in the 'which picture do you like more Mom?' contest :)

6. Waking up in the middle of the night thinking I heard my father (who traveled alot) get home, almost go down to greet him but didn't. The next morning we discovered the house had been broken into and my Mom's purse flung up on the roof of a local school.

7. All the books I got lost in for hours and days (Redwall, Lloyd Alexander and Laura Ingalls Wilder).

8. Taking out a $30 loan from my accountant father who drafted up paperwork for me to sign and repay with my allowance...when I was 8.

9. Making fast friends in elementary and struggling to stick together through junior high while discovering perhaps we weren't so similar

10. Discovering my quick to learn brain and excelling through academics

11. Playing the deadly game of spin the bottle, where lives are ruined and reputations made.at age 12.

12. Trying out for volleyball with no prior experience but the sheer will of wanting to be on that team. Getting spiked in the face countless times but never quitting all season (perhaps to the chagrin of my teammates.

13. Being denied a spot on Varsity soccer in Junior year only to negotiate my way on the team anyway.

14. Riding the bench for the better part of my soccer career but never leaving the sport I loved.

15. Asking my future husband to walk with me in graduation ceremony.

16. Being in the top 10 of my graduating class.

17. Getting a full scholarship to the University of Michigan, but acquiring a job within 2 weeks of starting anyway...

18. Learning to drink late in the game of life and paying for it

19. Finding friends amidst a sprawling campus, and taking comfort that my first best friend, Kellie, was there with me for 2 years

20. Choosing Turku, Finland as my study abroad location (because it was a direct exchange, i.e. free) then sitting in my parents backyard a week before departure and thinking, will there be friends there for me?

21. Finding the most amazing friends from all over the world and sharing experiences that to this day make me smile.

22. Leaving those same friends knowing it will never be the same and learning that life is made up of chapters with beginnings and ends.

23. Losing my Abuelita while away in Finland, the closest of my grandparents. I can still, and probably always will, be able to tour her house in Alma in my mind's eye.

24. Playing rugby and breaking my collarbone while realizing the amazingly real feeling of colliding with people intentionally (haven't tried it? Do!)

25. Moving to NYC with a suitcase in my hand and no idea where I was going or what a borough was.

26. Acquiring a cafe job within a week of being in NYC to support myself (well to feed me really).

27. Finally landing a teaching job as a middle school ESL/History teacher. Being torn apart and put back together by my students.

28. Finding friendship and opening another chapter of life, maybe like the Laura Diaries...like the Carrie Diaries?...no?

29. Marrying the man that followed me to Turku and NYC and bet on us time and again. Closing the NYC Diaries and heading back to Michigan.

30. Having my sweet little HP, the beginning of a chapter that will last a lifetime.