About me, for once.

Hello fellow members of the blog world! I am new here, and I hope you will be gentle.

It has been a long road to thirty. Yep, I am thirty and proud of it. At thirty I finally feel as though I am an adult. I am not a kid playing grown-up any more. I don't need to consult anyone before I make a decision...in fact, there is a list of people who now consult me for advice. I have my own home, three kids, a husband, a job, and a lot of responsibility. But I have arrived in adulthood and all that goes with it.

There is a lot about who I used to be that will explain why I am where I am today, but we'll get to that. For now, I want you to know a bit about what brought me here.

I am here for a peaceful place to vent and call me own, a place where I can speak my mind and not worry about what other people think about me. I am still searching for that place inside myself that makes me impenetrable to judgement from the outside world. I know there are many of you who will not agree with my lifestyle, my views, or even my taste in food, but all of these differences are the things which make us special.

I have three children, eigh,t four and three. Eight has a learning disability, and three has autism. It has been rough these past few months--really this whole year, as new developments unfold. They told me having kids would change my life, but I didn't realize they would keep doing it over and over and over again. I definitely feel my life is richer and fuller than I had ever anticipated, and having children has made all the difference. They are my shining light and my heart.

My husband and I have been married for six years (yeah, go ahead and do the math). It has been mostly happy, with all the normal vicissitudes. I love him dearly, and I hope we both live forever (hey, a girl can dream).

I have been working for five and one half years now as a medical laboratory technician at the children's hospital here. I absolutely love my job. I feel like what I do makes a difference. I must say that I have great respect for the nurses, doctors and even the families of sick children. It takes a lot of strength to do what they do every day. I have been in enough of the inpatient rooms to know that I am not emotionally strong enough to be in health care at that level at this juncture in my life. I have no doubt that I could do it, but a part of me would have to change much more than I am comfortable with to be able to stop weeping long enough to do my job. I have a pretty strong empathy gene, especially when the affected patient is a child.

All in all, my life is full and rewarding. I hope this was a good introduction, and my next series of blogs will deal with the past and how I have ended up where I am...