My Nine Lives

It is hard to believe that we are almost halfway through another year. “Time flies when you’re having fun” is a saying often said, but at my age it seems that time flies whether I’m having fun or not. I’ve blinked and suddenly find myself in my mid-forties. How did that happen? To be honest, I’m not exactly sure when or how I “grew up”. Or maybe I haven’t yet? Surely I’m not the only person who feels this way.
Yet, though time seems to fly, I can look back over the years of my life and it feels as though I’m like a cat with nine lives and I’ve lived five or six of them already. My life has been full. Full of people, full of jobs, full of memories, full of purpose, full of heartbreak, full of all the things that make up life.
June is my birth month so it seems this time of year I usually become a little reflective, looking back on my years thankful I survived and only lost half of my mind. I suppose I have the coming years ahead to lose the other half.
I was born and raised in Central Florida as the oldest girl in a family of ten children. I had two older brothers, so I was child number three. I was raised in a small Independent Baptist Church and attended an even smaller private school where we never had more than 18 or 20 kids in one grade. I was a good student and loved learning. Anything less than an “A” on any assignment would make me cry.