Memoir Photo 7 - Naive Aspirations?

I've written a lot about my past. But memoirs are also about who we are today, and what we will become in the future, and that's a huge part of my life right now. I've even titled my whole blog after my sort of tentative but impatient mindset: Naive and Ambitious.

The picture above is of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. And if that isn't the most beautiful place I can imagine on Earth, I'd like to see what is. My childhood dreams of novelism and nature-studying have evolved into a want to be a travel journalist, seeing the world, writing about it, sharing glimmers of diamonds in the rough with the masses. This life was given to us for us to do something with it, and with mine, I want to experience the world and all its beauties and tragedies and secrets as much as I can. I know I'm young, and full to the brim with improbable dreams, but I know that this burning desire won't die down easy, and I know I'll fight for it to the end.

Memoir Photo 6 - Ballerina Viper

I was always sort of conflicted in that despite having a natural tendency toward sensitivity and daintyness, I wanted to prove that I was a tomboy, too.

That was why I eventually gave up ballet, which I loved, to play on the boy's soccer team (The Vipers) instead. Soccer was a big part of my life for years. It was my sport, what I dedicated myself to and pushed myself for. I played right up until we moved to Erie, which is about the time I would have been forced to move to a girl's team instead, and I always have regretted not continuing to play. Actually, I've always regretted not continuing to dance as well. I guess, although maybe I was once a Ballerina Viper, I won't ever be again.

Memoir Photo 5 - Writer from the Start

The combination of my isolated lifestyle in the mountains, lots of free time, and a love of stories and reading all culminated in my early discovery of my love of writing. I don't remember exactly what age I began (seven or eight, I think), but I remember that when we lived in Conifer I would wander down to my dad's office in the basement, climb into his giant rolly chair, and write fiction on his computer. I had my own folder in his documents for my creations. Most of them were about animals: two kittens knocking over the christmas tree (Mom sent that one out with our Christmas card), a little stingray who got lost in the ocean (that one right after I saw Finding Nemo), a researcher who discovers a telepathic ability to comminicate with wolves.

I learned very early on the rules of punctuation and sentence structure, and that's why middle school absolutely killed me: we were learning, at a very slow pace, all the rules I'd already discovered myself. I'm sort of a snob in that sense, I guess.

Anyhow, I decided when I was nine that I was going to be a novelist/naturalist when I grew up. I'm not certain that dream has entirely vanished.

Memoir Photo 4 - Bookworm

So, I used to be a really avid reader. It's only been recently that I've stopped reading, simply because I don't have enough time anymore, and the free time I do have I want to spend sleeping.

But when I was small, I raised myself on books. I taught myself to read (more or less) before preschool, and when my little brother was born and I was six years old, I remember reading a chapter book (Harry Potter?) in the car on the way to the hospital. The extensive vocabulary and voice I was exposed to via fiction made me an astonishingly precocious child.

My reading habits also meant I was never bored, ever. I could entertain myself for hours on end turning pages. My dad used to get mad at me when we went out to eat at restaurants and all he'd see was the cover of my book in front of my face. He'd tell me I'd never know what my husband looked like because on all our dates I'd be blocking my view with a book.

The library was a huge part of my childhood.

Memoir Photo 3 - Partner in Crime

I have a miniature schnauzer named Pepper. We got her from the pound after my dad's old dog Rebel died. She was a few months old and had been found in a parking lot with a broken paw, so we had to keep her in a little doggy cast the first few months we had her (which was, by the way, pretty much the most adorable thing I've ever seen).

Very quickly she became, quite obviously, my dog. We did some research and found that it's been observed that schnauzers as a breed attach themselves to one person. In my family, I was the favorite, and she was pretty much my best friend. One time she actually jumped up onto the bus as I was getting home from school because I didn't get off fast enough.

She's getting older these days, but my parents still joke that I'm going to hide her in my suitcase when I run off to college.

Memoir Photo 2 - The Contractor's Daughter

My dad is a contractor, and that giant white mansion/house up there is the home he designed for my four-person family in Conifer. It ended up being too big for us in the end, but we lived there for four years, and it was amazing. My room, I remember, was only accessible if you braved the top-floor catwalk, and it had its own loft and walk-in closet--heck, thinking back, my closet had its own loft. And balcony.

Anyhow, the point is, it was pretty darn huge. Another catalyst for my overactive childhood imagination. And my dad consistently had jobsites constructing homes similar to it, and he would let me tag along often. I would walk through his construction zones like they were second homes, and when I'd grown bored of those, I'd wander off and explore the surrounding forests with my trusty companion Pepper.

Memoir Photo 1 - Blissful Isolation

For the first decade of my life, I lived in the mountains of midwestern Colorado: first, in Evergreen, a beautiful, sprawling mountain town set in the surroundings pictured above, and then in Conifer, overlooking a valley that stretched to the barely-visible Pike's Peak in the distance. It was a gorgeous land to grow in; I'm certain that the many adventures I went on, hiking with my dog and looking for bear caves, kickstarted my imagination into overdrive.

Ultimately, though, it was rather unhealthy concerning my social skills; my closest friends lived a forty-five minute drive away, and the school bus took as long to get to my elementary each weekday morning. It didn't help that I was naturally shy from the very beginning. The isolation of the mountains turned me into a hermit. I became painfully, horribly shy, and lacked self-confidence.

So when we moved to Suburbia, Colorado (first Erie, then Louisville), and my social skills finally had a chance to develop, I had to work hard to overcome my own uncertainties.