It all started when...

I won Best Writer in Mr. Jackson’s fifth grade English class. Mr. Jackson had told me I was good at something, and I decided to agree. From that point on, I’ve had a bent to oversharing my words. If only I paid more attention to sentence structure and punctuation rules.

I went on to become a typical Texas girl and join the high school drill team. I was raised to feel guilty for dancing in leotards, but I did it anyway. I once mentioned to a friend that I probably shouldn’t be showing so much cleavage. Help me, somebody. As much as I can remember, I had no idea what cleavage meant. To prove it, I wish I could insert a photo here of every one of my leotards with it’s 90’s turtleneck style. 

Right before my senior year, and on what I refer to as the best Friday night ever, I fell in love with EP. I’ve loved him ever since. Our very first dance was to Boyz to Men’s I’ll Make Love to You in our high school cafeteria. He sang every word to me, which made me blush, and my friends stare in shock. 

Two months from being twenty, I married that boy. Together we survived Bible College, where he learned theology, and I learned the things deemed “wife stuff.” I still remember the talk on how to make bone broth from chicken bones. We were told we could ask our local meat market to have said bones for free. We weren’t shown this to be hippy cool and give our kids a tablespoon a day for wellness. No, we were told this because it was thought we would be that poor. That bible college is scary stuff. It was also the most fun because we lived in Missouri and experienced snow and fall leaves and apple cider, all the while growing up, messing up, and making babes. Two babes to be exact, one girl and one boy.

Ever wonder if reading a book can literally change the course of your life? One did for EP and me. We read unfamiliar words in a simple book that lit a fire in our soul. We moved cities, made more stupid decisions, then made one of the best and hardest of our life. For two years, we dreamed of a boy that we called our son. We would visit him in Haiti as often as we could. Wildly, on a regular night in February, he came to live under our roof. His first mama and papa watching from the heavens, I tucked him in for the first time at nine years old. 

The youngest of our complete family was born just a few weeks prior. We didn’t expect him, a fresh new babe, but he came as a gift to us all. He was the single unifier that easily and without protest was everyone’s favorite. 

In the days and nights of raising my littles, I met my birth mother. I knew her for eighty-two days before she unexpectedly passed away. She would call and talk about the weather, what book she was reading, or what show she had just seen. I still miss her even though I didn’t really know her. Does that make sense? I did get a chance to ask her awkward questions about the random tattooed birthmark on her face. I am a curious one.

Today, I am a forty-something-year-old teller. I some times cook on Instagram stories because one person told me they wanted to watch. Sucker. I am currently writing articles here and there and working on a memoir. Some of you may think I am old, and others will think I am young. I like it that way. I pray the rest of my days are filled with more adventure and joy and risk than the ones lived before.

xx

Deb