About Me Part 1

I figured the first order of business on this blog venture would be to introduce myself and give a little background about my life and how I’m here now. 

I was born on August 27, 1995 at a hospital that doesn’t even exist anymore, in the small town of Atlanta, Texas. Yes, Texas. Usually when I mention living south of Texarkana people know where I’m from, but if I don’t say this and that I am indeed from Texas, everyone always assumes I’m from Georgia. 

As early as I could, I took Pre-AP English and took art classes in school, and I loved to read on and off during my childhood. My now husband’s mother was the fourth grade Reading teacher, and I used to love getting to read in the old blue and white speckle-painted tub that had tons of pillows, where I would read for whole class periods. I continued on the advanced English and art track all through middle school, and the summer of my eighth grade year, I did an AP English book reading and report project that would impress my freshman teacher, who would remain a dear mentor all through my high school career and beyond. 

I knew my now husband, Caleb, since middle school - did I mention I dated him for one day and then dumped him the next in sixth grade? Pretty unique meet cute I would say - but we didn’t truly become friends until art class freshman year. His love for art would continue to grow, and we would eventually bond over it our senior year, where we finally became best friends and I realized I couldn’t live without him. I will admit it took me a long time and a bad/lame sophomore through junior year relationship to realize this, and even though I didn’t deserve it he was there for me through it all. We didn’t even speak for all of junior year because of this, but I’m grateful we found each other again senior year. 

 Caleb and I graduated in a class with a little over eighty people, and to prove how much smaller the world - and our town in comparison - can be, I’d also like to point out that Caleb’s dad was our tenth grade Chemistry teacher. So the in-laws always knew me, which was nice. Caleb and I spent the whole summer together with each other and our friends, and to this day I still believe that summer before we all went off to college was the greatest summer of my life. Caleb agrees. 

I guess the rest of my story really revolves around me and Caleb’s relationship, because the week before we both went off to different colleges - him to UNT for computer science, me to LA Tech for studio art - my boyfriend and I broke up and I told Caleb how much I was going to miss him when we both left. The last two days before we went our separate ways were two that I still cherish. I never thought he would tell me that he was going to miss me too, and that me saying those words would spark a journey that’s over a decade old now and is still going. I think I must have known deep down already who I was supposed to be with, though to my detriment I thought with time I could change a naive high school boy and that we would be together forever. I’m so happy I was wrong. 

Caleb and I did long distance for our first year of college, then decided to move back home to go to school together at A&M Texarkana. We still weren’t sure what we wanted at that point; we just knew we wanted to be together. After two years there, Caleb went on to UT Arlington a semester before me to continue his computer science program and I stayed to finish my Bachelors in Psychology, graduating in December of 2016. As soon as I was finished with school, I followed Caleb to Arlington, where I Ubered and worked at a daycare part time to make ends meet in our tiny 525 square foot apartment, our first place officially outside our hometown and on our own. Caleb finally finished his degree, I tried and failed at going back to school for art - one semester and I decided it wasn’t for me - and Caleb got his big boy job in the defense industry, which would be the reason for our moves across the DFW for the next six years. 

I eventually landed a full-time payroll job that would suck the life out of me in the year and a half that I was employed there. It was a job and it paid the bills, and I met some great people there, and I’m still friends with one of my coworkers from there, so I can’t say it was a complete and utter waste. I learned a lot about what I didn’t want, that’s for sure. But I was glad to not have to Uber and work another part time job to get a paycheck. 

And so Caleb and I left Arlington for Fort Worth, where Caleb would be closer to his new job. We went all out, buying a new truck and car and getting the two bedroom and two bath apartment that felt like a house. The only problem was that Caleb’s job wasn’t worth it, and eventually I would also grow miserable at my job to the point where I just walked out one day, which is something I’ve never done in my life. Is it bad that I don’t even feel bad? 

Before I quit that job, Caleb and I went with my cousins to a beautiful vacation in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to celebrate the marriage of my closest cousin. The whole way home from that trip, Caleb and I talked about throwing a wedding together in six months, nothing fancy, just a small wedding in our hometown with our closest family and friends. And so I spent a summer planning, I quit my job, went to New York on a much needed vacation/bachelorette weekend, and came back and got married. And that was when I finally realized that I was happy for the first time since my life-draining job. 

We got married in November of 2021 and soon after that Caleb got another job offer at the same company but at a different location. We moved to Farmers Branch to be closer to that job, and we hated that apartment with every fiber of our being. Sure the layout was nice, but the neighborhood and the neighbors weren’t so great. We lasted a year there before we decided to move even closer to his job to a perfect little studio apartment in Grand Prairie that I still miss to this day. We finally almost had everything, but there was still a nagging feeling that we didn’t want to stay in Dallas forever. 

Sometime during the Farmers Branch and Grand Prairie days, Caleb picked up art again on the side for the first time since high school, and I took up writing full-time. Caleb gave me the greatest gift: the freedom to pursue this wholeheartedly and to try my best to make something of myself so I could get him out of his career before he got stuck doing something he didn’t want to do forever. The dream one day is to be a successful author with my husband at my side, who will one day be a successful artist. And that’s what I’ve been up to the last year and a half. 

Caleb started to randomly apply for other jobs, and on a whim, applied for a software job in Aurora, Colorado. We never dreamed anything would come of it, but before we knew it Caleb was getting interviews and we were talking about making the biggest move of our lives to Denver. The one problem was that we had just moved to Grand Prairie a year ago, and it just now started to feel like home, like we had a decent routine. But once again there was that nagging feeling in the back of our minds saying “What if we regret not taking this leap?” And so we decided to take the plunge together. And now here we are, proud Coloradans, loving the decision we made and the community that we’ve become a part of. 

And so I still work every day to make my dream a reality, in hopes that Caleb will be able to follow suit and we can live the creative dream together one day. I believe that I’m on to something, that I will be able to start getting some things out into the world fairly soon, and this makes me excited. I’m hopeful, because I’ve been pursuing this full time for as long as I was at that horrible payroll job and I still haven’t gotten tired of waking up and writing every single day. To quote possibly my most favorite modern musical of all time, “here’s to the ones who dream.” 

And I guess that’s it. It’s safe to say that my husband is my number one fan and my constant, and without him I wouldn’t be taking these leaps and going on these journeys. I’m grateful for his support, and I hope that through this blog I can gain more support from the community outside, and even if this just ends up being a place to share my thoughts with the world and nothing else, I consider this time well spent. Because no matter what, I know my home is wherever Caleb is, and we will never stop dreaming for each other.