So, I am:

Ever curious

A dreamer and deep thinker

A person who feels loved

I’m an avid, voracious reader and always had, and will always have something to read nearby

I am a writer of unpublished works

I am the author of published works

I am a writer who can get stuck in the mire of unlimited editing

I absolutely love learning and education and feel most at home in a classroom environment

I am an educator who loved designing my curriculums more than students appreciated what was in them

I love, love doing research on many topics

I’m a poet and in my head a song writer

I like the exchange between people I’ve met on FaceBook and Twitter but know when to cut all that negative data off and re-energize what they can zap from my spirit

I love that second and third cousins have found me through FaceBook and we’ve developed relationships

I like my phone but it’s the first thing I put aside when someone is talking to me

I love that I will never stop learning and feel that childish response to learning new things

I am a keeper of secrets, but know that those particular secrets are only unspoken thoughts and not words that involve the lives of people I know

I love giggling babies, being needed, being useful, and being able to share knowledge

I love creating various forms of art, sewing, and crochet

I am a good cook, love to see people enjoy my foods, and am learning to experiment with different foods

I am not a vengeful person, but I am someone who will step quietly out of your life and remove all traces of myself if you deliberately hurt me because you don’t do that to someone you care about

I chose to surround myself with loving, fun, humorous people and have no use for mean spirited or violent people

I am someone who feels honored to have kids and young people CHOSE to include me as extended family by calling me “mom” and “auntie.” I’m adjusting to being delegated the new role of “Mama Carol,” and hope to earn the right to be called that before I return home.

I am a mother to all who ask that of me for as long as they need it

I am a mother who parents according to the needs of each adult in my life that I once called my child

I’m a mother who has loved her children during their worst moments

I am a wife of almost 40 years to a man I continue to make happy and successful in spite of himself

I love nature, rocks, trees in all their seasons, space, the wind, and songs from various genre’ and cultures

I do not clamor to be in the company of others as I’m comfortable in my own silence

I am different things to different people and marvel that I understand the depth of how humans are always in relation to one another and appreciate how true conversations, meaningful conversations have no beginning nor end, they are always somewhere in between.

June 20, 2019