Past
On May 31 1986 years ago I was born in St. Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee. I have lived with my mother and have never met my father, nor do I know who he is.
Around the time I was 2, my mother married Dan, her now ex husband. They had one child together; Amanda. Mom and I moved to Wausau, WI to live with Dan. We lived in a beautiful old house in the country. Soon the beauty of the house was overshadowed by the ugliness of my hate for mom’s husband, and their arguments. At the age of seven Amanda passed away, and two years later we finally moved out. I don’t remember much of anything until about the age of four. I am inclined to think my childhood was very traumatic and I suppressed memories. Anything is possible, I suppose.
After we moved out of Dan’s and before we moved in with Tim, we lived with many different people in several different apartments. Mom worked several jobs and eventually met her now husband, Tim. During that time I was able to get away with just about everything, and did. I made many friends with whom I no longer speak and now realize how bad of an influence some of them really were and some great friends with whom I still currently speak. Nevertheless, much of that time I consider the best years of my life.
For the next five years my mom and I had lived with her now husband Tim and the move to the East side was cause for me to go to a different high school than all my friends. However, it’s an experience I don’t regret.
On Februrary 2 2003 mom had another daughter, Samantha and Mom and Tim were married on March 5th of 2004. I was extremely wary of what them having a child might do to the current situation and while there have been some downfalls, for the most part, everything has been okay.
I was part of the last graduating class before they open the new East, when I graduated on June 7 2004. This is where I get to brag. I was in the top 25% of my class, my GPA was higher than it’s ever been, and I was accepted into all the schools to which I applied. I suppose my academic talent makes up for my lack of interest in sports, an activity I haven’t enjoyed since elementary school.
I thought I was was pretty set with my plans for college when I thought about majoring in Law and minoring in Psychology. However, I’ve gone through many careers ideals. More recently I wanted to be an architect, which led to me being the only female in the entire school taking Technology Education. I soon outgrew that and had been set on being a lawyer for some time. Then I decided that I wanted to expand my graphic and webdesign knowledge and to further my education in this field I applied to technical/design schools. However, because of financial concerns, I was not able to attend college right away.
Instead, I started working third shift at Wal-mart as a cashier. Despite what everyone says, it’s not awful but third shift is definitely unpleasant. Shortly after (December 2004) I moved out from home into my own apartment which I shared with my best friend at the time, Ashley. However, shortly before our lease ran (June 2005) up she ran into financial problems so when it came time to renew our lease she moved out and my close friend Wendy moved in.
In January of 2005 I met, for the first time, the guy with whom I had been chatting and fell in love with on the internet: Rian. We had a wonderful time and before he left, became officially engaged. On July 25 of 2005 we were married at the Wausau courthouse with only 3 guests in attendance: Wendy, my friend Sami and Sami’s husband Eric. It was rather spontaneous and there were some hurt feelings due to the secrecy of our engagement and “wedding.”
Unfortunately there was no honeymoon or big celebration. Being that it was only a short visit, several days later Rian had to leave and shortly after he moved to Japan, where he is stationed with the Air Force. Luckily, we were able to see eachother early the next year when I flew (for my first time!) over to visit him.
I returned home and finished out my lease at the apartment with Wendy before deciding to move to Milwaukee and try my hand at living there. I hoped I would only be in Milwaukee for a short time as we had been working on theprocess that would allow me to live with Rian in Japan for some time and I had finished the paperwork a couple months before my move and we were waiting on the response.
I did only spend about 4 and a half months in Milwaukee. The first month of so was spent staying with my aunt Rebecca and cousin Violet as I looked for a job and an apartment. The latter was fairly easy but the former proved to be most difficult and I did not find a job while in Milwaukee. Lucky my husband was somewhat understanding.
In September the process was finalized and I set my departure date about a month later so I would have time enough to pack, move my stuff, and spend some time back in Wausau with my family in friends. I returned to Wausau for a week and a half and spent most of the time with my family, especially my sister Samantha.
On October 27 I flew out from the Central Wisconsin Airport and made connecting flights in Detroit, Tokyo and Osaka before finally arriving at Misawa on the 29th.
I lived in Japan for nearly 2 years, working at the Enlisted C
lub on base for about a year. In May 2007 one of my closest friends, Wendy, flew to Japan and stayed with us for several weeks. She and I took a bus trip down to Tokyo where we visited Disneyland.
In April 2008 I flew home for the first time since I moved to visit my family. It was wonderful to see my sister, Samantha, especially. After returning to Japan, Ryan and I took a trip to Tokyo where we visited DisneySea and Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. Shortly after, I quit my job.
In August 2008 we packed up all our stuff, shipped it off and waited to leave Japan for good. We camped out on the floor of our apartment for a week until we finally were able to spend some time at the hotel on base. The weekend before we flew out, we drove to Lake Towada, through the Oirase Gorge, and had a great time. I also got unbelievably smashed. LOL
On August 5 2008, Ryan and I left Japan for good and spent over a day flying back to San Antonio, his hometown, where he is now stationed. We stayed with his parents for 5 weeks before we were finally able to get into our own place. Shortly after, our possessions finally arrived, we bought a brand new bedroom set and added a Russian Blue kitten named Phantom into the mix. Shortly after moving, I began taking online classes through MATC.
Goliath joined the brood around Christmas and I continued living in San Antonio with my then-husband for two years. After the dissolution of my marriage, I returned home to Central Wisconsin to be closer to my loved ones.
