I've been blogging in Ramblings With Direction on and off for approximately three years I think. If you've jumped from that blog to this one, this post will probably prove relatively unnecessary for your viewing. Just the same, you may learn something, so by all means continue.
I was born in Montgomery, Alabama to Kevin and Sharon (Sorenson) Mell, both of whom are from North Dakota. At the time of my birth, my parents already had a [recently] 5-year-old, Milo, who was such a good brother that he literally kicked his friends out of the house if they weren't nice enough to me. When my mom was 8 months pregnant with my little brother, Matthew, my family moved back to North Dakota from Alabama to help my great-uncle and grandpa on the family farm.
We grew up broke. Scratch that--REALLY broke. Even so, my parents worked very hard to give us a good childhood. We did not want for toys and things, but we didn't get everything we ever asked for. Looking back, I'm particularly glad for that.
My brothers and I got along relatively well in the grand scheme of things. We all fought like mad, but just the same we were a pretty tight-knit group. I played cars and trucks and stuff with them; from time to time they played dollies/barbies with me. It didn't make anyone girly or boyish or anything; we were kids, and we were the only kids we knew, at least until school started.
Growing up, I really didn't get along with my classmates. I tried everything for awhile in the beginning--even pretending to be stupid, but when it finally occurred to me that nothing was going to make them like me, I just gave up and turned to books. At that point in life, I preferred to be anywhere but here, even if only in imagination/spirit. So I taught myself to delve deeply into the material that I was reading. When I stuffed my face in a book, the world just dropped away. I sat with a dictionary for awhile and looked up words I didn't know. That didn't exactly go over well with my peers, either.
Don't get me wrong, I had a friend here or there over the years, but never very many, and I've done a lot of questioning of the validity, legitimacy, honest, whatever, of a few of them.
The summer after junior year, in 2010, I went to Washington, DC for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) National Youth Tour. That summer I was also elected to represent North Dakota on the NRECA's Youth Leadership Council, featuring one student from 42 states in the nation with RECs (and participating in the program). This allowed me a second trip to Washington, DC the following month, which--thankfully--cut off half of my National FBLA trip to Nashville, TN. (Suffice it to say I did NOT enjoy that trip.) Also, the NRECA Annual Meeting was in Orlando, FL in March of the following year.
In October of my senior year of high school, my little brother committed suicide. It is literally the shittiest thing that has ever happened in my entire life, and I pray that I will live for a very, very long time before something else matches or outweighs it. Honestly, I'm not entirely positive that I could handle anything else so catastrophic any time soon. I already cope with (undiagnosed) clinical strength depression that cycles at a more rapid rate than it used to; I don't think I could handle being drug through hell again.
My life has heretofore been terribly unfortunate. I don't mean it to come out as a sob story like oh boo hoo my life sucks. Because, despite all that, it really hasn't/doesn't. I've been drug through hell more than once and come out the other side intact, perhaps even stronger than I went in. I have the presence of mind to look back and be embarrassed/ashamed of some bits and pieces of my past and proud as hell of others.
I guess I skipped over graduation and my first year of college. There really isn't much worth mentioning. I had my first relationship fall semester. It lasted 6 weeks, which, in retrospect, is kind of amazing because we really were doomed from the start.
I transferred from Minot State University to University of North Dakota this fall, and I'm so excited I can't even stand it. I need to get the hell out of this region, and the sooner the better. I've never fit here and I'm never going to; that's all there is to it. There's a lot that I like about Minot, but I need more. And I can't even specify "More what?" because it's just an all-encompassing MORE. It's difficult to explain.
For what feels like the first time in my life, I have been genuinely happy this summer. I don't really know why. I don't have any real legitimate reason or excuse for it. But I will tell you why:
I allowed myself to be.
I decided to be happy and discovered that that's really all there is to it. Once you allow yourself to be happy you can be, and will be. I still miss my brother like hell. I still cope with depression and all kinds of psychological bullshit, but I'm not allowing it to own me anymore. My life is mine, and I'm deciding to smile. I'm choosing happy. I like waking up in the morning and looking forward to the day instead of dreading it. It's a good feeling.
So that's a very general overview/gloss-over of my life thus far. And I mean VERY general overview.
This blog will probably consist of memories from childhood or particular events in my present, musings about things that were, are, might be, will never be. I generally try to keep the exactitude of my life off of the internet but sometimes I feel like there's something that other people can learn from my life and experiences. Sometimes I feel like I have something I need to teach people; I don't know what it is or how I'm supposed to go about doing so, but... it's a feeling I get sometimes.
So, until we again converge,
--Emily
I was born in Montgomery, Alabama to Kevin and Sharon (Sorenson) Mell, both of whom are from North Dakota. At the time of my birth, my parents already had a [recently] 5-year-old, Milo, who was such a good brother that he literally kicked his friends out of the house if they weren't nice enough to me. When my mom was 8 months pregnant with my little brother, Matthew, my family moved back to North Dakota from Alabama to help my great-uncle and grandpa on the family farm.
We grew up broke. Scratch that--REALLY broke. Even so, my parents worked very hard to give us a good childhood. We did not want for toys and things, but we didn't get everything we ever asked for. Looking back, I'm particularly glad for that.
My brothers and I got along relatively well in the grand scheme of things. We all fought like mad, but just the same we were a pretty tight-knit group. I played cars and trucks and stuff with them; from time to time they played dollies/barbies with me. It didn't make anyone girly or boyish or anything; we were kids, and we were the only kids we knew, at least until school started.
Growing up, I really didn't get along with my classmates. I tried everything for awhile in the beginning--even pretending to be stupid, but when it finally occurred to me that nothing was going to make them like me, I just gave up and turned to books. At that point in life, I preferred to be anywhere but here, even if only in imagination/spirit. So I taught myself to delve deeply into the material that I was reading. When I stuffed my face in a book, the world just dropped away. I sat with a dictionary for awhile and looked up words I didn't know. That didn't exactly go over well with my peers, either.
Don't get me wrong, I had a friend here or there over the years, but never very many, and I've done a lot of questioning of the validity, legitimacy, honest, whatever, of a few of them.
The summer after junior year, in 2010, I went to Washington, DC for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) National Youth Tour. That summer I was also elected to represent North Dakota on the NRECA's Youth Leadership Council, featuring one student from 42 states in the nation with RECs (and participating in the program). This allowed me a second trip to Washington, DC the following month, which--thankfully--cut off half of my National FBLA trip to Nashville, TN. (Suffice it to say I did NOT enjoy that trip.) Also, the NRECA Annual Meeting was in Orlando, FL in March of the following year.
In October of my senior year of high school, my little brother committed suicide. It is literally the shittiest thing that has ever happened in my entire life, and I pray that I will live for a very, very long time before something else matches or outweighs it. Honestly, I'm not entirely positive that I could handle anything else so catastrophic any time soon. I already cope with (undiagnosed) clinical strength depression that cycles at a more rapid rate than it used to; I don't think I could handle being drug through hell again.
My life has heretofore been terribly unfortunate. I don't mean it to come out as a sob story like oh boo hoo my life sucks. Because, despite all that, it really hasn't/doesn't. I've been drug through hell more than once and come out the other side intact, perhaps even stronger than I went in. I have the presence of mind to look back and be embarrassed/ashamed of some bits and pieces of my past and proud as hell of others.
I guess I skipped over graduation and my first year of college. There really isn't much worth mentioning. I had my first relationship fall semester. It lasted 6 weeks, which, in retrospect, is kind of amazing because we really were doomed from the start.
I transferred from Minot State University to University of North Dakota this fall, and I'm so excited I can't even stand it. I need to get the hell out of this region, and the sooner the better. I've never fit here and I'm never going to; that's all there is to it. There's a lot that I like about Minot, but I need more. And I can't even specify "More what?" because it's just an all-encompassing MORE. It's difficult to explain.
For what feels like the first time in my life, I have been genuinely happy this summer. I don't really know why. I don't have any real legitimate reason or excuse for it. But I will tell you why:
I allowed myself to be.
I decided to be happy and discovered that that's really all there is to it. Once you allow yourself to be happy you can be, and will be. I still miss my brother like hell. I still cope with depression and all kinds of psychological bullshit, but I'm not allowing it to own me anymore. My life is mine, and I'm deciding to smile. I'm choosing happy. I like waking up in the morning and looking forward to the day instead of dreading it. It's a good feeling.
So that's a very general overview/gloss-over of my life thus far. And I mean VERY general overview.
This blog will probably consist of memories from childhood or particular events in my present, musings about things that were, are, might be, will never be. I generally try to keep the exactitude of my life off of the internet but sometimes I feel like there's something that other people can learn from my life and experiences. Sometimes I feel like I have something I need to teach people; I don't know what it is or how I'm supposed to go about doing so, but... it's a feeling I get sometimes.
So, until we again converge,
--Emily
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