Date: 2005-11-15
To: A Brief History
Miles today: 0.0

I¢ve thought as I¢ve read over the journals here on trailjournals.com that I¢d like to know some more about the people writing them. I mean what led up to this momentous undertaking. So I thought I¢d devote one entry to a brief biography.    I was born in a trailer on my grandparent¢s farm in Calhoun County, WV. Mama says it was a beautiful spring day and she walked miles up and down the bottom on that day. (Ah, perhaps we begin to get to the beginning of this long walk). My then 7 year old brother, Luke, was there to greet me.    One of my first memories is of my sister Melody¢s entrance into the world. By then my daddy had bought a gas station/repair shop in the same county and we lived in a brick red house back from the station in a small hollow. When Melody was born I asked my Aunt Bea if they couldn¢t just put her back. (I wouldn¢t trade you for all the world now Mel.) Rose followed 4 years later, although she was born in the hospital because dad decided he was too old to catch babies ?. (Mel and Rosie ¢ you are my best friends ¢ I love you both more than I can say). By this time I was 8 and attended Calhoun Christian Academy, or CCA, a rather grand name for a one room school that met in an old farmhouse. But I learned more in that school than in all the rest of my academic life. A love of reading and learning and an ability to figure things out for myself are the lessons I value most.   In the early morning hours of April 1, 1989, my world was shattered. My brother Luke, whom I idolized, along with my cousin Danny, was killed in a tragic car accident. Lukey, this journey is dedicated to you. You, who went hunting but enjoyed the fellowship with nature and good friends more than the actual sport, would have reveled in this great journey.    My dad, who had been pasturing two small country churches for several years, went into full time ministry in the summer of 1993. That meant a move to Webster County where he was assigned to 6 churches.   That fall I entered public school for the first time. Talk about culture shock! It was like a different world. Soon, however, I found my place at WCHS ¢ the drama troop. When one of the players dropped out, I got the part of a wife in ¢Lil¢ Abner¢. I could put away the shy, backward April for a while and be someone else. Drama, and the friends I made there, got me through.    During my senior year, I decided I would be a missionary and nurse so in the fall of 1997 I went north to the Parkersburg branch of WVU to study nursing. I¢m not sure why ¢ perhaps the jading of the ¢real world¢ ¢ but that dream faded and by the end of the year I had switched my major to education, then to business technology a year later. In September 1999 (the end of my ¢wild summer¢) I met my soon to be ex-husband, Chris, at a party. We got married in November of the next year and I graduated in December. You¢ll forgive me if I gloss over the last 5 years as the memories are still too near and bittersweet to be put up for public display. I¢ve held 4 jobs since then ¢ as a clerk and then a secretary at one hospital, a cook in my Aunt¢s restaurant, and now as a clerk in another hospital. Suffice it to say that Chris and I grew apart. We¢ve been separated since the end of March and I am reconciling myself to the fact that my marriage is over. It has been the hardest decision I¢ve ever had to make.    So now I feel I¢m a bit adrift. I¢m not sure where to go from here. Thus my great journey. Although it sounds a bit melodramatic (blame my 4 years as a thespian), this is more than a 2000 mile hike through 13 states to me. I have lost myself somewhere along the way and I hope this will not be just a journey to Katahdin, but a rediscovery of who I am and who I hope to be.