1.12.04

my life story...

Hey hey hey! Well I finally finished my "Life History" paper I wrote for my current events class... I thought I'd put it on here in case anyone was bored enough to read it. It's long though...

It was in the wee hours of the morning, on April 4, 1986, 1:50am to be exact, when I came eight pounds, nine ounces, and screaming into this world. I was the firstborn of my parents David and Laura, and since my parents are both the oldest in their families, consequently I was the first granddaughter to all 4 grandparents, and niece to my aunt and uncles. I was supposed to come on March 28th. But I decided I’d stay for another week.

I’m sure my parents wondered what they had gotten themselves into shortly after I came home. I had what many babies have. Colic. I think it’s actually considered a dirty word among parents. I would cry every night from 7:00 to 11:00; it was after I was about 4 weeks old when my mom discovered Mylicon. Whatever it is it helped and they didn’t have any trouble with Colic again.

I started talking at a very early age. (If you ask my dad he says I haven’t stopped talking since!) I was only eight months old when I said my first words. They were “bear” and “dad-dad”. I was also pretty small for my age, despite being eight pounds when I was born. One of my mom’s favorite stories to tell about me is when my little mouth said too much. I was about 18 months old, and talking in sentences. My mom was out at the grocery store shopping and I was sitting in the cart minding my own business. We were in the canned goods isle and there was this extremely large black man who was reaching for a can on the top shelf. Well, when he reached for it, he managed to knock about 15 cans over and they came crashing to the floor. Without missing a beat, my tiny voice chimed in, clear as a bell: “Way to go, Klutz!” My mom who was pretty embarrassed, thought “Oh my gosh I’m going to get myself beat up” left the scene immediately.

I was an extremely independent toddler. I wanted to do everything myself, and I didn’t want my mom to do anything for me. Whenever she’d try to help I’d stomp my foot and cry “I do it me-self!” Maybe it was because I was so independent that my parents decided they wanted a second child. I was two years and nine months old when my little brother Matthew was born. I was so excited at first. I remember going to the hospital to see him with my grandma and grandpa. It was when he came home that I had a hard time adjusting to not being the only child anymore. All of a sudden all attention was diverted to him. My mom figured out how to cure that though. She let me help. I helped give him a bath and change him and put his clothes and shoes on. Not to say we never had any sibling rivalry because that’s certainly not true, even today!

I started preschool at my church when I was three years old. Unlike most kids who were clinging to there mom’s in tears, I just calmly looked at my mom and asked her if she was leaving or staying. It was when I was three and a half when I had my first experience with . My dad’s mother, my grandma Greathouse, died. She had been sick a long time. I don’t remember much about her, but I do remember the last hospital visit we made before she died. I remember being kind of scared with all the stuff that was hooked up to her, but when she could still talk to me I felt better. I don’t think I completely understood what all was going on.

I remember how excited I was to start kindergarten. I was excited to ride the bus and meet new people and be at the “big school” as I called it. That big school was Lubeck Elementary and I started there the fall of 1991. The first day of school I met a that would be my best friend for the next 7 years, Kayla Norris. That’s all I really remember from that first day of school. She was sitting at the table putting together a puzzle. I came over and we put it together, and we were friends from then on. I also met another friend on the second day of school, who rode my bus, Sara DaCosta. I remember her smiling face, bouncing ponytail and Barbie backpack. Her first words to me were “Can I sit here?”

In the fall of my first grade year, I remember getting ready for school one morning, when my mom sat me down and told me that she was going to have another baby. I couldn’t believe it. I was incredibly excited. I wanted a little sister more than anything. I already had a brother; he was a big enough pain as it is. I wanted a sister. I wanted someone who would willingly play Barbies and House with. I remember the day my parents went to the doctor to find out if the baby was a boy or a . I had prayed earnestly day after day that it was a . Matthew and I went to my grandparents’ house. When they came home, they had pictures and a video tape. They put the tape in the VCR. Well I couldn’t tell what was what. My mom was pointing out the head and arm and leg. Whatever. It just looked like a bunch of black and white swirls. But the next thing that came I understood very well. On the screen came the letters. “M”- “A”-“L”-“E”. My jaw dropped. Male. Male! It was a boy! Matthew yelled with delight but I just sat there. I couldn’t believe it-- another annoying brother. Now I had someone else to pull the heads off my Barbie dolls, wreck my drawings, and refuse to play with me. But all was soon forgotten when I first got to hold Mason. Because I was older this time around, I got to help more with feeding and bathing and changing and all that stuff. I decided having another brother wouldn’t be the end of the world. At least maybe now they could play together and leave me alone.

Another change came into my life when I was in second grade. My friend Sara moved. Her dad’s job got changed and she ended up moving across the country to Arizona. I was incredibly upset. We wrote to each other years afterwards. But when she moved, I became even better friends with Kayla and I never had a closer best friend the rest of my time in elementary school.

Around Christmas time when I was in fourth grade, I went to Matthew’s Christmas program at Lubeck. The theme was something like “Christmas in the West” or something like that. They had a little square dance type thing then they had one that was clogging. I immediately thought “Wow! I want to do that!” So with a few phone calls my mom got me into clogging lessons with Teresa Holbert in March of 1996. I absolutely loved it. About six months later, I met one of my best friends, who is still my friend today, Nicole Keller. And then a few years later, I met Marybeth. They both started clogging lessons as well.

It was later in that same year, in June, when my life turned upside down. The day started out as just any other day. I was outside playing with the neighbor s Megan and Monica Thomas. And all of a sudden my mom came outside and told me to get in the house now we’re leaving. I started to protest, but something in her voice told me it was important. My grandpa Greathouse had been taken to the hospital. No big deal, I thought, I mean he had to go to the hospital several times before, with minor ailments. But it was when my mom was flying to my grandma McCauley’s to drop us off, that she reached over and took my hand and said. “I hope he makes it”. That’s when I knew this was serious. What had happened was that my grandpa had a heart attack. They tried to bring him back, but weren’t successful. I was sitting in my grandma’s living room, reading a book when the phone rang. My grandma answered and was talking in a soothing and quiet tone I couldn’t understand her. She hung up, sighed and walked into the living room and told Matthew and I to come sit with her. That’s when she explained that my grandpa had a heart attack and that he didn’t make it. Then she went on and explained how he was in heaven now. I just sat there. This was happening way to fast. I was numb. This was a dream, right? I’d wake up, in just a few minutes. But it wasn’t it was true. My grandpa had died. It didn’t even sink in until that night when I went to bed. I didn’t cry until then. I didn’t go to the viewing or the funeral, and to this day that is a decision that I do not regret. My brothers were young enough my mom was planning on them staying with my grandma and grandpa McCauley. But she gave me the choice to go or stay. I chose to stay. I’m glad I made this decision because now the last memory I have of my grandpa is on the fourth of July, us all laughing and having a good time. I don’t have any memories of him lying lifelessly in a casket. I’m very glad of that.

In sixth grade my life was pretty good. I had my best friends Kayla and Nicole. I was still clogging and having fun with that. Everything was fine…until I started junior high. Seventh grade really stands out as the most difficult year that I’ve had in my life so far. Not only was I trying to get adjusted to a new school, and new people. But I was losing my best friend fast. Kayla had made some new friends shortly after the beginning of the year. They didn’t like me. I don’t even know why, but they didn’t. I wasn’t good enough. Not popular enough, not fashionable enough, not pretty enough. No matter what the situation was, they always found a way to make fun of me and make my life miserable. Its hard enough trying to fit in when you’re just starting to become a teenager, but to have your self esteem go through the floor certainly doesn’t help. Sometimes Kayla would join in with them, although we were still ok when we were together just the two of us. But it caused a rift in our friendship. That year we slowly grew apart. I started spending more time with my friend Amanda Waugaman. She had been my friend since we were really young and had gone to my church, but we became closer in seventh grade and she was there for me throughout that difficult year.

The next year was better. The summer before eighth grade I became a member of the Class Act clogging team. Where I met who would become some of my best friends, Abby Goosman and Seth Cunningham. When school started that year, I met Whitney Gill. She had made more of an impact on my life than she probably realizes. Anyone who knows Whitney knows that she’s loud, funny, hyper, and all synonyms to those words. But she also has a sense of self in that she doesn’t care what others think of her. This was helpful in my own identity search when I was in eighth grade because she taught me that popularity doesn’t matter, and those who think you aren’t good enough aren’t worth your time anyway. It’s better to be yourself. And I think she instilled in me some of the attitudes I have today.

I still didn’t have the best self esteem when I was in junior high. I watched as all my friends and all these other people had boyfriends and me? Well, to my knowledge nobody liked me then. And I had the same crush on the same guy for two years, only to get nowhere. When I got into high school however I think I changed my attitude completely. I decided that I wasn’t going to chase that guy anymore. That there was better for me, and I’d quit worrying about it.

Early in my junior year one of my good friends Marybeth decided that with all that was going on with her and sports that it was best that she quit clogging. I was upset. There were four s around my age on the clogging team: Abby, Nicole, Marybeth, and me. We all hung around together, but it was still Abby and Nicole, then Melissa and Marybeth. We didn’t go to the same school so I knew we wouldn’t see each other very much. But, God has a plan, and though she did quit, it led me to then become better friends with Seth. I got to know him a lot better and realized how fun and what a nice guy he is. It was March of the following year when I spent the most time with him at a clogging workshop in Gatlinburg. It was then that I started to like him a bit more than just friends. Of course I had flat out convinced myself that he didn’t like me and wouldn’t like me more than a friend and I’d just be miserable until I got over it. But well, luckily it didn’t turn out that way. It was but three months later when he did ask me out. It actually blindsided me because I had no clue it was coming. Our relationship had however been extremely gradual. Unlike most teenagers, we didn’t even hold hands until a long time after we started going out. It was the combination of us being such good friends and making that transition, and also because his mom was (and still is) extremely cautious with us. I wouldn’t have had it any other way though, because now he’s more than just a boyfriend. He really is my best friend. I have been extremely blessed by having him in my life and I hope to have him in my life for a long time!

As I sit here writing this paper and thinking back on my life, the memories and the stories. I can’t believe that my senior year is half over. It is going so incredibly fast. I am scared and excited at the same time. I’m excited to go to college, to become an elementary school teacher, and to be a wife and a mother. I am still scared though, to make the change. I know I’m almost 18 years old, but I still in some ways feel like a kid. The thought of growing up is scary, and though I’m not sure I’m ready for it, it’s coming anyway! I hope to go back and read this someday when I’m old and gray and my kids are gone, and I hope that my dreams for my future will have become reality.

TTFN!

~Melissa

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