It occurred to me that while it is personal, it might help to know my back story to put some of my quirks into context. This has some to do with testing eventually, but for more to do with me.

I was born in Washington State to a married couple who had a 16 month old daughter. Before I was even born the first thing said about me was, "The baby has red hair! We don't know if it's a girl or boy yet." After that the jokes began as I stood out next to my entirely brunette family. When my brother was born a few years later, his hair was red too, although it's faded out to more auburn over time. There is no doubt about who my father is, since I have his nose and feet. My parents remained married until I was 18 years old. Most of my childhood my father worked for Boeing and my mom stayed at home with the 3 children until we were all in school. We were part of a religion who called themselves "the Truth". You might have seen them in your town. The woman are visually noticeable as they wear no makeup, hair up in buns (you can't cut your hair), and dresses, much like little house on the prairie. TV and Movies weren't allowed. Church was in the morning and evening every Sunday, bible study one week night per week, and intense conventions in the summer with up to 6 hours of "meetings" per day, with one long weekend on "special meetings" in the winter. Christmas and Easter weren't celebrated openly if at all, but because my Grandma was Catholic, we celebrated both, just not with a tree nor did we flaunt it to the other members of "The Truth".

Because of this environment I read for entertainment growing up. In fact, I read most of the books for children and young adults in the Sumner library by the time I was twelve years old. I read much faster than most people can because words are the format I'm used to digesting. My father, along with many of the other men in this faith, had some major problems sticking the to rules. He drank, had drinking binges and yelling binges and a few other habits in conflict with the religion and family life in general. My sister reacted by becoming more confrontational with my Dad. I reacted by smoothing things over and creating peace, often a pretty unsustainable peace, but it would work until the next time human nature and the rules of religion came to a head. I can usually find some level of comfort and positivity even in a pretty hostile environment because I have practice. This is part of why things that might devastate another person aren't so bad for me. However, if I feel tricked or set up for failure, I don't do well. I also don't accept people yelling at me. I will leave if it happens and come back later. I've spent enough hours in my life in that situation, so I'm pretty firm about what I accept and what I don't accept in terms of how other people treat me.

My Mom is the best woman in the world. Not just to me, but she's loving and nurturing to many. If you ever met her it is impossible to deny her goodness. She's a middle school teacher and she can see the best qualities in everyone. When you talk to her you leave feeling heard, understood, encouraged, and comforted. She is generous, smart, hilarious, tolerant, patient, creative, resourceful, and radiates positivity. She is talented at everything she tries, from baking cakes and sewing, to graduating with a 4.0 and her master's degree while raising 3 kids. My Dad on the other hand was a bit of a trouble maker. Charming with strangers, his erratic behavior, temper, and drinking binges made it tense to live with him. He tended to comment about females based on appearance only. To this day it troubles me when someone has the attitude that anyone has value only as a visual object. On the plus side, my Dad never missed a day of work. His work ethic was one thing he shared with all of his kids. He also loved us and supported us in all that we wanted to do, be it my brother's sports or being at every play and choir concert I ever performed in. While not perfect, the love and involvement of a father is not a given, and I know I'm lucky to have that. I have never doubted that my father loves me, and that is a great gift. After working for 30 years at Boeing my Dad left on disability. After moving to New Mexico with my Step Mom he got far worse with his dementia and now is unable to travel. He still knows who his kids are, but has such serious problems with dementia that he gets quite confused easily. I have not told him about my job transition at all. The last time I tried to tell him bad news was last year. I told him that unfortunately our cat had passed away and he replied, "That's awesome." He didn't mean that badly, he we simply confused by it. So, to summarize, my Dad was an interesting character, but the person he is now is not the person I knew before.

Things were going along in my life about as expected during my childhood. I was an excellent student and an active Church member. As part of Church Convention each person does some chores to help the larger group. When I was about 12 years old at Church convention I wanted to be a dish washer. The main reason was I was interested in the machinery. I have a strange fascination and some talent with machines. I was refused and told that as a girl I'd serve water at meals and if good enough would then poor coffee and tea. That's just what the girls did. The machines were dangerous and I wouldn't like the work anyhow as it was too hot. I knew that this was wrong. I knew that this was life limiting for me, and I quit the church. I brought up the contradictions, the petty gossip, the many reasons why I didn't believe in this religion, and one by one my family left. The final straw for my Mom was someone saw her after gardening at the store in jeans and came to ask her about her wavering faith. This was the day after my Dad had been out all night at the bar, and her raising 3 kids on her own. They came not to ask her how she was coping, if she needed help, but why she wasn't keeping up appearances.

I spent some years being angry and insisting that because that religion was harmful to me and my family that God didn't exist for me, or if he did I didn't want to know about it. I no longer feel that way. I believe in God, and in a joyous and comforting way that I experience, not in a way that has any fear or threat to it. I do not find God in a building or companionship with others or even in the bible. I find God in nature, and when I silence my mind. I believe without proof for no reason that I'm loved and that all the beauty on earth was created for us. I do not need anyone else to agree or disagree. I simply have my own beliefs and respect the beliefs (or lack of them) that others have. I don't like to argue about religion. I have my own faith that I enjoy and accept whatever others believe.

When I was 13, almost overnight I was fully grown. I mean huge and towering over all other kids in my Jr. High. I was as tall as I am now and heavier. Not to mention with my long bright red hair I already stood out. I hated this and dyed my hair brown with blonde streaks for awhile and tried to fit in. I was a good student, so I tried to rely on that. Still was tormented from many classmates. At that point I decided I couldn't fit in, so I was at least going to be interesting. I shaved half of my head and bleached my hair entirely with a striped rat tail down the back. I then used as much Aquanet as possible to have giant flock of seagulls hair. I smoked. I went to drinking parties with high school kids. My grades were slipping because I didn't go to school much. I thought about dropping out. The more my parents made me go to the Sunday meetings, the more leather and makeup I wore to dissuade them from asking me to go.

In High School I was just about to give up, get a GED, and head to college, but I found drama. I tried out for a play, and from that point on my school career had purpose. I graduated with honors and the national school choral directors award, and was voted "most unique" in my senior yearbook because i found choir and drama.

I decided that to honor breaking free of being a barefoot House on the Prairie looking religious member that I was going to become an auto mechanic instead. I started attending a course at my Community college. The first semester I learned brakes and Arch Welding. I was good at welding and enjoyed it. I lacked the tools and know how for the car repair, but still passed. It would take about $20k in tools to get started as an auto mechanic, and I wasn't loving the other people I worked with as much as I'd hoped. For that reason I changed and picked up the AA degree. I fell in love with "Computer Multimedia" and became an art student. I studied graphic design and worked to try to support myself at the same time. I ended up leaving the design program. The primary reason was I didn't enjoy creating art on a budget with requirements from someone else. What I really loved was using the design software. Oddly enough, that is more what Graphic Design is now, but at the time I was in school we were still using light tables and T-Squares for many of the projects.

How does this relate to now? Well, I still love reading books and using design software. I'm sensitive about gender bias issues and want to be valued for my capabilities and my mind. I don't like being controlled. Socially, financially, my writing, my thoughts, verbally, I value freedom. Sometimes you will find I'm willing to sacrifice security for freedom. I believe that security is an illusion but loss of freedom isn't. That said, I don't want to abuse my freedom unfairly. Finding peace coming from my background is strange. I have joy in the smallest of freedoms that I was born to be denied, be it my lip gloss collection or one glass of red wine or putting up Christmas lights. I was born into puritanical expectations where I'd quietly learn to smile while stabbing a fork into the back of my hand without a bit of makeup humbly reading my worn bible. On the other side I long for the pure goodness and trustworthiness that the religion aspired for without any of the human downsides.

We all have our history and it is up to us to define who we are going to be. We do that with how we react and grow over the years.