The Events that Shape Us

Do you ever look at your life and think about the main events that have made you who you are today?

One I have shared with all of my readers is my inability to get pregnant. . . when I wanted to get pregnant. Yes, that experience definitely shaped me. It taught me. And I grew and learned from it. There are many other distinct things throughout my 30 years of life that have made me me. Love me or hate me. . . This is me. A few stand out more than others. One is my Dad.

I was raised in a small community near Rochester, MN. It wasn't considered a suburb, instead, I call it a small farming community in rural MN. You know the kind. . . the kind of town that has one Main Street, and no stoplights. Many unmarked intersections, about 1,200 people. The kind of town where many of the people live on farms outside of towns, where there are a couple cafes, a couple local bars, one being the VFW, but about 10 churches. The kind of town where everything was in walking distance. . . the local Kwik Trip, the school, the church I grew up in. Yes, this was the town I called home for 18 years.

Growing up in a town this size, there was no anonymity. The fact that my Dad was a teacher, and a football and basketball coach in this really small town, didn't really help the whole anonymity thing. My Dad was a teacher of Elementary Physical Education, or as we Minnesotans call it, Phy Ed. (I've heard other parts of the country refer to it as Phys Ed) The teasing started at a young age. Grades would come out on our little yellow report cards, and I always got A's in Phy Ed. Certain classmates would tease me and say that I only got A's because my Dad was my teacher. (Nevermind the fact that I lived and breathed anything competitive and active) Then there was the 3rd grade incident when the boy I was going out with dumped me cause it was "ackward" dating a teacher's child. Well, I flushed the Chicago Bears ring he had given me down the toilet after that.

Things only got more difficult during my high school years. Although my Dad was no longer my teacher, he was still a very public figure and almost every male classmate of mine had my Dad as a coach in football and basketball. (When you're from a small town, you play sports. It's a give in) If someone didn't like my Dad, whether it be because they didn't get the playing time they thought they deserved, or whatever the reason was, they didn't like me.

It was homecoming, and the tradition was to toilet paper the player's and coach's houses. Harmless, right? Well, our house wasn't just TP'd, it was also egged, tomatoed, and a gift my siblings and I had given my Dad, and outside thermometer with a picture of a duck on it, was ruined. I remember being humiliated the next day as my Mom said and scrubbed the tomato off our house, as the bus rolled by, and all of my classmates could see. Humiliated. Then I got to school, and some people who I thought were my closest friends knew who had vandalized our house, but wouldn't tell me. Friends. . . right.

Shortly after this experience, I was at the local Kwik Trip (the only gas station in town) and saw a few older female classmates buying eggs. They turned to me and told me they were egging a teacher's house, and not to tell him. This teacher and his family were close friends with my family. But I didn't tell anyone. Even when this teacher called my Dad the next day to ask who could have done it, I still didn't tell. I was just so happy that someone was the target besides my Dad.

Sometimes I would break down and talk to my Dad about this, and he was always so calm. He said that it didn't bother him. He knows who his friends are. He loves and trusts God. He simly did not care what people thought of him, because he knew who his friends were, and that is all that mattered.

Later in my high school years, I got stronger. When I heard someone badmouth my Dad, I stood up for him and for my family. If I saw a team picture that he was in hanging in the hallway of the school and vandalized, I would rip it down. I quit letting people bully me, and I quit letting people make me feel bad. After I graduated high school, things got much better for my Dad and family. I think a lot of it had to do with the new kids he was coaching, and their parents. Respect is so often times learned from parents, and the kids my Dad coached after I graduated were a bunch of REALLY great kids.

Yet, I always struggled with how people could be so cruel to my Dad. He's a wonderful man. He's calm, he's kind, and he would never harm anyone. Growing up in a small town with a Dad who was a public figure was extremely difficult for me, yet it taught me so much. And the lessons I learned are lessons that I bring with me throughout my life.

I know who my friends are. Friends are people who will stand up for you no matter what. Friends are people who won't sit around while you are being badmouthed, and say nothing.

One of my favorite quotes from Eleanor Roosevelt is that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Don't let people make you feel bad. Be confident in the person that you are. Not everyone is going to like you, and that's okay. Like yourself, and the rest will follow.

Family is everything. Rely and lean on each other.

Learn from everything you experience in life. Everything we go through is a lesson to shape us. I would like to think I'm a more confident woman because of what I went through growing up.

People who are purposely unkind to others usually have something deeper going on in their lives that have nothing to do with those they are being unkind to.

And my Dad? My Dad is still one of the most wonderful people I've ever met, and I'm SO lucky to have him as my Dad. I wouldn't have changed my childhood for anything.

And those kids that used to taunt my family and make life hell? I would like to think that the anger they displayed was because something was going on in their own lives. I hope they are all doing well, and that they are happy in wherever their life has taken them.