I’ve always had a flair for the (over)dramatic, counterbalanced only slightly by my left brain’s halfhearted attempt at pragmatism. From the time I got my first feather boa at the age of three, I dreamed of a Hollywood spotlight and a star with my name on it and spent my childhood drawing “lovely ladies”—my juvenile attempts at fashion artistry—and producing home videos with an antiquated camcorder and my dad as a director in between accelerated math classes, orchestra practice, and several failed attempts at athleticism.
In short, my girlhood aspirations followed a somewhat atypical progression from movie actress to Broadway star, concert violinist to world traveler, and, finally, bestselling author to Ph.D. Growing up, I strove to bring these dreams to life, each in their own way.
My camcorder movies were viewed by friends and family in my family’s home theater with mixed success (grandparents gave them rave reviews; my peers were considerably less enthralled) and I played the title character in “Miguel the Monkey” at a youth theater camp production one summer. I made it far enough as a violinist to be the featured soloist with my local orchestra and receive a full-ride scholarship to a private university, only to refuse it due to my decision that, if I was going to make any music at all, I would rather it be of the jazz variety. (Entrant the first major regret in my life.)
After that, I stalled out somewhere around bestselling author, a time during which my young adult novels sold as #1 in their category on Amazon.com (a small honor in its own right; even more so when one graciously fails to consider that there weren’t many novels in those categories with which to compete). Days before my eighteenth birthday, I went so far as to sign a contract and subsequently release a book with a top 20 publisher, but my abysmal marketing skills ensured that my literary future was aborted practically before its conception.
Henceforth, I have currently settled into a nomadic sort of existence in the dangerous wasteland between M.Ed. and Ph.D, teaching students the literary skills that I, myself, still hope to master and dreaming of the perfect doctoral degree program or a second-chance literary success. And, while I am yet to become a world traveler, I am still gamely checking countries and continents off my list as often as my starving student/artist salary enables me to do so.
As I mentioned, I tend to take things (over)seriously and explain them (over)dramatically.
If I haven’t lost your attention yet, then I would like to inform you that I love cats and hate coffee, I (quite obviously) have an obsessive passion for vintage Hollywood, I eat more calories than I should which requires that I exercise more than I would like, and I live with my (often over-dressed) husband in a midcentury modern house two doors down the street from my mother (who manages the most exclusive five-star restaurant in the world) and father (who now spends his time making films about his life as a sea captain instead of his daughter’s melodramatic antics) and one very dainty, slightly fluffy cat named Chantilly Cream Hepburn. (Yes, I named her.)
It’s a bit of an unconventional existence, sewn together from the glorious patchwork of my equally unorthodox upbringing, but it’s mine and I love it dearly. If you’d like I would love to invite you to come along with me as I continue to live the lovely life with the people I love the most and a little (aka: lot of) help from the love of my savior, Jesus Christ. Allons-y!
“The greatest victory has been to be able to live with myself, to accept my shortcomings…I’m a long way from the human being I’d like to be. But I’ve decided I’m not so bad after all.”
Audrey Hepburn