How to sum up me (or any whole person) in a few words, which as any who know me will tell you, brevity is not my thing?

 

I just turned 40. This marks 10 years I have spent as a totally disabled person. This is not how I thought my story would go, but it has been worth the bad to have found the good.

 

I used to be a new editor/copy editor at a newspaper that was in my time, owned by Gannett.

 

Before that I was a college student. A philosophy & English double major. I won a scholarship for poetry I wrote and worked as a writing tutor, which taught me that the Japanese language does not use articles (that was my grammar geek showing). I also was the editor of the school newspaper and the English Literary Society president.

 

I attempted my master's in mental health counseling a few years ago. I was 2 classes from finishing the academic portion when I had to finally admit that there was just no way my broken body could do a yearlong internship, much less start a new and demanding career.

 

Did I mention I was also a mother during all of this? Yes. Since I was 17 in fact. Just a bit after I dropped out of high school, not for the pregnancy, which I didn't know at the time, but because I was sick of being judged and bullied by people who thought their cornfield-inspired “ethical” opinions were incontrovertible fact.

 

My son is 22 now. I home-schooled him while working from grade 3 forward due to some problems he was having. We learned Latin together the first year and he had to memorize and recite one poem a week.

 

I left out a few essentials:

 

* I'm bipolar 1

* I have panic disorder with agoraphobia (one of the many reasons you would never see me out and about)

* I also have chronic pain caused by a few known factors and other educated doctor guesses or unknowns

 

I left out my best friend through adulthood, my cat called Cassiopia (Often Queen Cassiopia). She died 4 years ago and it almost broke my heart.

 

What saved my heart was the German Shepherd puppy we’d brought home earlier that year. Jasper. Jasper is pure, unconstrained energy.

 

Where Cassie was my friend, Jasper has become my eternal baby and my constant companion.

 

My likes, dislikes, what I do, read, think, waste time with ... these are ethereal and instantly changeable. That's later.

 

My family, my loves ... they are in my photos, even if they are no longer with us.

 

Where everything begins and ends for me is my Ryan. We’re not married. We've been together 11+ years. We aren't waiting to get married. We both have always been a bit “odd” I guess is a good way to say it.

 

Neither of us think anything would change if we added a piece of paper and the stamp of approval from an officiator (i.e. anyone certified in 10 minutes via the Internet). With the divorce rate as high as it is, the excuse that it's harder to leave when you’re married doesn't hold water. Not to mention: why are people talking about the ease of leaving before they begin? why do they think someone who stays only because leaving is too hard is worth being with anyway?

 

I explain these thoughts only to tell you why I call Ryan “my Ryan.” This is because English is very bad at specific words. We have one word for love and employ adjectives to define what we mean.

 

And, there is no set of words to define who people are in relation to one another when they are not married but have as much history as we have and intend to spend the rest of our lives together. I tried creating words for awhile, but that's an inane task.

 

So I just say “my Ryan” and if people want to know why I can't just easily check one of the nicely formatted boxes, they can ask.

 

This is already entirely too long and I'm not sure what my purpose is other than to begin to make a painful transition away from this being my blog/iOS Affairs account. Many accounts to go before I sleep, wait, no, I meant before I decide.

 

Question everything. Especially that which you most believe and hold close. Question authority, yes. But question yourself, those around you, question all that is. Make “Why?” become your battle cry!