Since I have gotten the basis of these events down, perhaps I need to go back and fill in some details. Paint some pictures. I'll start with some positive ones, some that I carry with me and pull up when needed.
The best book I have ever read is The Giver. It is a fairly remedial book for me, even when it was assigned in school the first time, but I like the idea behind it. I like the idea of being able to pull up memories to get you through a situation. Simple and a bit silly, I know, but I like simple and silly.
My mother can sew. Which makes me feel a bit less of a woman because for the most part I can't. She used to make some of my clothes; not just basic shirts, but dresses and other such things. Part of the reason, I learned later in life, was that because I was always so small, it was hard to find age-appropriate clothes that fit and when she could find clothes that nearly fit, they needed to be taken in in one place or another. The other reason was that store bought clothes were very expensive.
My mother also is full of life. Despite her own life, she has pulled through and become a very outgoing and active person. Some of my earliest memories with her are at the carnival when it came to town. We would ride the tilt-a-whirl. Just us, no one else in the car. She taught me how to sit in the very middle and lean one way or the other to get it spinning as fast as it would go. If it wasn't particularly busy, we would ride again and again trying to go faster each time.
After my transition to Florida and while I was working at Disney she came to visit and we rode the Teacups at Magic Kingdom. My Dad and Brit, having learned their lesson before, chose to ride in their own teacup while she and I worked in tandem to spin the cup as fast as we could.
She and I are, not surprisingly, very much alike despite our very different lives. I know she wants nothing but the best for me, but any less than a thousand miles between us makes that very hard to swallow. Now that we have begun to live our own lives, we do talk on a regular basis. My favorite new memory was last year standing to watch her run across the finish line of a half-marathon. Running is her new activity since I left.
My Dad, actually my Step-Dad, plays the referee quite often when the topic of school and wedding (something new) comes up. He believes college should be on my terms and no amount of force will get me to change what I want. Which would be okay if I knew what that was.
He loves his jobs, both of them. He works as an RN in the cardiac wing of their local hospital. A slight bit of irony in itself. He is passionate about helping people. He is also very passionate about his service in the military. He has always taken the stance that young kids should not be sent to war. He was chomping at the bit for a long time before they finally sent him overseas last year. He was stationed both in Afghanistan and Iraq and was gone for almost the entire year.
His son, my step-brother never lived with us and as we got older, came over less and less. Barley a year younger than me, he also has chosen to take some of the harder roads through life.
Bubby, who I've already introduced, is my favorite person. Sure, we fight and argue, but when it comes down to it, we have quite a bit in common. His view of life and the world is much different than mine. He has a much stronger connection to our hometown and the people in it, occasionally (so it seems) resigning himself to a fate of following in our biological father's footsteps. On the other hand, he knows me better than anyone else; which is not to say that he knows everything about me, because he doesn't. He can voice for anyone exactly how I would feel about something (and most likely with quite a bit more tact).
These people, these personalities make up my family. With other people coming and going from time to time, influencing or affecting us as they pass by.
