Hi.  I’m Jessica.  And even though I am a bona fide Georgia Peach, somehow I never developed that trademark Southern drawl.  I don’t know if it is the lack of accent or something else, but most people think I’m from the midwest.

I was born in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia that used to be a tiny, quaint little town that was safe enough where, at night, you could leave your front door unlocked and if a kid went missing, they were probably out in the woods.  Playing.  I graduated high school.  It was uneventful.  Other than the storm that blew in right as the valedictorian began to make her speech and a giant gust of wind blew her notes right out of her hand and scattered them all over the football field.

It didn’t really matter that her speech was interrupted, because as she was racing all over the field trying to collect her speech, we were told we had to evacuate because of the storm.  We marched back into the cafeteria…and then back out to the football field – again – after the danger, namely lightening on metal bleachers, passed.

I did the college thing right out of high school.  For some reason, I never really had a “dream” school…well, no, my “dream” school was whichever one would let me play basketball for them.

That school ended up being LaGrange College by a total fluke.

The head coach of LaGrange College’s basketball team “discovered” me only because she happened to be early one afternoon during the end-of-the-year tournament, catching the end of my high school game, while waiting for the one after ours to begin.

I received a letter in the mail soon after, asking me to come to play basketball for LaGrange.  So I visited the school, liked it well enough and off I went in August to start my college career.

I’m not sure why my coach told me how she found me, but I guess she figured honesty was the best policy, since I had never heard of them in my entire life until I received that letter.

Three years later I left LaGrange with a BA in Psychology and more basketball accolades than I will ever feel comfortable mentioning

Yes, three years.  That is not a typo.  I decided one day during my freshman year that I wanted to finish college in three years.  So I went to school all year long, through the summer while everyone else was taking a break or going on vacation or doing any multitude of interesting things.  Then, during senior year, I decided I didn’t want to have to get back into shape during basketball conditioning, so I picked up and ran cross-country for my school.

If nothing else, my cross-country experience taught me that if you run to a point almost past your ability for an extended period of time and you start to feel like you’re going to die if you don’t stop, you definitely won’t die but you will most certainly pee your pants.

After college I didn’t have a job – because a person with a BA in Psychology is expected to continue their education somewhere to get an advanced degree.  I tried to apply to schools all over the country but when it came time to write the essay on “why” I wanted to go to their school…I couldn’t do it.  I didn’t know if I wanted to be a counselor or a psychiatrist or any of those things.

So, instead, I moved into an apartment with my then boyfriend in a small town called Newnan.  It was sort of close to LaGrange, but not really.  I’m not sure why we decided on Newnan, since he still had a year to go in school, but Newnan it was.  This boyfriend always had crazy ideas and Newnan was the pet sitting business idea.  I spent every waking minute on this business and soon enough, we actually had clients and I actually had to go out to a farm and feed horses.

I’ve never cared for or had a horse in my life.  Yet, ex-boyfriend would tell potential clients that he knew all about horses and birds and reptiles and anything else…tropical fish…you could possibly keep as a pet.

Except, the times these “pets” needed care was while he was in school, which left me to do the “caring.”

The relationship ended in an explosion a few months later and I walked out without saying goodbye and haven’t seen or spoken to him since.

Since I had no job, I decided to move in with my dad while I started looking for a reliable job.

This was a huge adjustment, since I had been living “on my own” for three years.  And now I was back under “the roof” of a parent.

My job search began to become more and more necessary.

In addition to looking for gainful employment, I was also perusing the online dating scene, since most of my high school “friends” had scattered to the wind and I wasn’t super interested in reviving any kind of old flames.

Seven months after I graduated college, I met my husband, Tim.

We had our first blind date, hit it off and have been together since.   When you tell the whole story, it almost seems too good to be true sometimes.  Maybe it is…maybe it isn’t…but it is wonderful either way.

Tim and I have an age gap of 13 years, with me being the young one in this relationship.  Some people do not understand marriages like this…others do.  The gap comes with its own challenges, but so does every relationship, so, I don’t think we’re all that different from anyone else.

I finally found my first job with a test preparation company.  I was a manager of things I didn’t even fully understand and was only hired because the two “men” who interviewed me had an entirely different opinion on “experienced.”

Somehow, I ended up moving in with Tim around the same time I got this job and was driving four hours to and from work each day – two hours there and two hours back.  After a year or so, I had had enough and left.

Six months later, I found another job closer to our home and stayed with that company (minus one, short four month hiatus where I tried to write a book…which is chronicled somewhere on this blog) until Tim was offered a new job with out in Denver, Colorado.

After 27 years in Georgia, I was finally going to get to live somewhere else!

I was ecstatic.

I love the mountains like most people love the beach.

Now, after six months (and counting) of living in Colorado, we have learned what a low humidity climate really means (dry everything) and we’re trying to enjoy as much of this beautiful place we can before we have to move again (a known contingent of Tim’s job).

I am still trying to write a book…and maybe one day I’ll finish it and be able to see my hard work in a bookstore somewhere.  I am a writer, so I am trying to do whatever I can to be able to write full time and have my family see me as a writer instead of someone who likes to write (there is definitely a huge difference).

Until then, I’m still participating in the ongoing process of finding myself and, as an added bonus, among other things, I like to talk about what I may or may not find on my journey on my blog.  Except, now, I’m trying to find myself in the mountains.  Which can be distracting.