Family Myths

Anyone one person can tell you that they don't have a single personality. People take on a different role depending on who they hang out with. As for myself, I am one of two siblings, with my brother Matt being nine years older than myself. Being that my parents had me in their late 30's and my mom had a fairly dramatic experience birthing Matt, I guess you could say that I was an "oops" child, so in a way I was raised almost like an only child with three parents. Not saying that my brother was an authority figure, but he was someone that had quiet a bit of life experience and was much easier to turn to for answers than my parents.

As for the roles, I would have to say my parents see me as their adventurist child. Starting at an early age, I would meet early in the morning and ride bikes with my friends all over town until about dinner time. This would upset my parents cause they had no means of contacting me, incidents like this would help my parents come up with the term for me as always "running." I wasn't a bad kid growing up, so my only groundings would come from my so called "running" adventures.

As for my nuclear family, I am the most experienced traveler, so it has always been fitting for me to be the adventurer. I am very used to being separated from my family, so being at college hasn't given the feeling of being homesick yet. Other than traveling to Europe last summer, I am gone for seven weeks every other summer, attending camp all the way up in Maine. Before the ability of being able to understand my actions, my parents have told me that when I first began to crawl, I would zip around the house investigating every nook and cranny as if I was on some type of secret mission.

Adventurer is a very fitting personality, this winter on our family vacation to N.Y., I insisted that I drive the eight hour journey separately. I told my family I wanted my own truck up their so I could go home earlier, but my main reason was really so I could listen to my own music and navigate the long trek on my own. Something about me, I really do love to travel, which makes me wonder why I never ran away from home.

It's kind of hard to admit not being my family and all, but I relate a lot more to my friends and truly do have a different role when I am with them. Ever since the incident when I tried to Tarzan swing out of my friends tree and ended up falling flat on my back in the yard, my friends have given me the nickname "Agreeable A.J." I get this name, because they know that of all the people in the group, I am the most flexible person. When we are all at a stale-mate as to who will be the the one to perform the difficult task, it is me who offers every time to perform the act. With this role, I can be seen as a leader, or a follower. This one time my friend had an awful idea of doing a fifteen minute one gallon milk chug, when he couldn't find a competitor, I stepped up to the plate and took him on. I really couldn't tell you who won, but between the two of us we finished off two gallons of milk within the given time and vomited a combined total of 22 times.