Seven Years of Life: the Readers Digest Condensed Version

Feeling nostalgic, so I'm writing here for the first time in years. So much has changed! I was going to write without looking to see how long or what was going on then, but that just didn't make sense with all the Big. Events. I think the easiest way to do this is to summarize, and then maybe I'll come back some day and fill in some details. Who knows? Maybe I'll finally write a fucking memoir. I got that second major in Journalism and wrote for the Sneak Preview for a year and a half as a side gig. Tyson became "Sports Editor" and we each had monthly columns. The night before my SOU graduation, I got a call from Dad saying he wouldn't be able to make it because he'd been diagnosed with lung cancer. Tyson graduated in 2014 with a 3.5 GPA as an All-Star basketball and football athlete. He took an offer for an academic scholarship at a Division III private college in Allegheny, PA and went to live in the dorms. Winter break, he came out to visit and decided not to go back. Instead, he transferred to a community college outside of LA, where his high school girlfriend lived with her mom, and started rapping. He eventually moved up to Portland and is currently living back in Medford, writing and recording music. He just got his first break bartending/serving and hopes to eventually transfer and move back to LA older to pursue his music. Seth never did have to pay child support, dammit. I thought at least Tyson would get back pay, but no such luck. Can't squeeze blood from a turnip, as Mom used to say. So yeah, Tyson and I saw Dad for the last time July 5, 2013. He died just over two weeks later. And that's pretty much when everything started to fall apart. Mom outlived him by 11 months, after a quadruple bypass surgery she never quite recovered from. After years of anger and resentment for not being the strong woman I wanted her to be, I've finally recognized all the wonderful qualities she did possess, and I've forgiven her. It wouldn't be Mom if it wasn't complicated, though, and of course there's a lot of guilt. I wish I had the chance to ask her to forgive me. I wonder if that will ever go away... Fast-forward to Kathy introducing me to a guy she went to high school with, a real sweetheart/teddy bear type who ultimately was little too passive and conservative for it to work. The two of us moved to Scappoose together and I bought a boat with some of the money I inherited when Dad died. We lived aboard the Last Mate for a couple few years. During that time, I got work at a social service non-profit agency as a case manager working with Portland families facing homelessness. I eventually ended up working in the Early Childhood program and learned how to be a puppeteer so I could present to K-5th graders about being kind, standing up for others and reporting abuse, etc. I finally applied for the MSW program at PSU, but wasn't sure if I really wanted to go. Got rejected. Freaked out that in order to use my scholarship, I HAD to get accepted the next year (2017). Did a LOT of networking. Got in. Killed it. Loved it. The Social Work program is basically group therapy with a bunch of likeminded empaths. I learned so much more than social work. Boundaries and self-worth, even. Whodathunk? Graduated last June with my MSW (Children, Youth & Families concentration) and my School Social Work License. Got a job working as a mental health therapist with teens and their families at a high school about an hour drive from where I live in Scappoose (oh yeah, sold the boat to Mick when we broke up and rented a floating boathouse apartment in the same moorage). It's been a really rough start, but I'm finally getting my bearings a little bit and while I'm far from perfect and only just beginning, I'm good at what I do and I love being a therapist! I got a fancy hybrid electric car (2013 Chevy Volt), my credit score is in the "excellent" range, I have a shit ton of college loan debt, I got a dog (Lulu is the sweetest Olde English Bulldog ever!!!) and I need reading glasses. I think I'm finally grown up.