The Short Story of My Life (just in case you wondered)

    I was born in Mesa, Arizona, though my family didn’t live there at the time. My mother had some weird notion of tradition: all her children (4 total) must be born in the same hospital by the same doctor.
    Maybe that has something to do with my own warped sense of how things should be done…
Anyway, my family settled in West Virginia, just in time for me to start kindergarten, where I received my first spanking. Trust me, it was a “how things should be done” issue.
    I was always an imaginative child, very willing to daydream my life away. Plus, I always had the most creative excuses for why my work didn’t get done.
    In Junior High, I discovered the joys of putting all those daydreams onto paper: mostly in the form of poetry.
    High School found me still writing. I managed to win a few contests and have a couple of English teachers who would openly praise my talent. I loved every minute of it!
    Consequently, I one day made the announcement to my parents that I intended to be a famous author when I grew up. They sighed, rolled their eyes and said, “That’s nice dear, but how are you going to pay the bills?”
    So, in complete protest of my parent’s lack of confidence in my ability to become famous, I enrolled in college as a Home Ec. Major. I did this for the soul purpose of showing them that I had absolutely no intention of going to work. Ever.
    Well, eventually I did come to my senses and realize I had bills to pay and small children to support. I buckled down and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing. I managed to graduate from college having never taken a writing or literature course above English 101.
    I had bills to pay, so I got a job in a small hospital in Safford, Arizona and settled into working. The most my writing consisted of was: “10:45 pm- Patient stated was going to throw up. Threw up.” Very creative. Very memorable.
    Eventually, I was given an opportunity to stay home with my children and teach them. Somewhere between measuring rainfall and memorizing the order of the planets, I remembered my promise to be a writer. Ok, I no longer have delusions of grandeur, but I am finally a writer.
    By the way, my husband pays the bills. I pay for, um, dessert.