Beginning

The title may be confusing. I wouldn't consider myself the black sheep of the family by any means. I get along well, and I feel like I fit in with everyone. I do feel like I gave up on my potential some time ago. When I was in high school, I saw myself getting my bachelor's in 4 years or less, moving on to a master's, and starting a teaching career before I was 30. I'm 24 now, and the most I could claim would maybe be an associate's, if I looked through my course credits and actually did something with them.

Let's start again.

I'm 24 years old, and I'm lost. I'm one of four kids (older middle), and I basically grew up in Cary, NC. Military bases before age 7 have almost faded from memory; this is my hometown. My older sister is an English teacher in South Korea (kindergarten at a private school, from what I understand). My younger brothers are a soldier and a marine, in order. The soldier just got to Afghanistan within the last few days, and the marine will be a fully-fledged Korean linguist this fall. My mother is incredible. I tell everyone I know that I pretty much have the coolest mom ever. She's a nurse practitioner (Go, Mom!) for the VA, and she constantly makes me want better for myself. I like to say that I sprang fully-formed from my mother's forehead; that's probably all you'll ever hear on the subject of the other parent. Or not. We are the sum of our parents, I suppose. I'm engaged to the most wonderful fellow, and we have two cats and a dog together. I see friends frequently. I work in retail, twice over. I work at a grocery store once a week, or so, and at a drug store full time.

I have a fabulous extended family. On my mom's side, I have my grandparents, 3 aunts, an uncle, and 8 cousins. That doesn't even start on spouses and the further-extended relatives. On the other, I have an aunt and uncle and two cousins, but I haven't seen/heard from them since I was little. They are all wonderful, and I learn things every time I so much as think of them.

I started this because I miss writing, and everyone else seems to have a blog. I think it'll help me get things out of my head and exercise my brain. I think I'm not as smart now as I was 5 years ago. I've lost my mental sharpness, and a lot of the knowledge I had.

Bam.