I recently posted a personal snippet to my blog, and a comment there got me to thinking.....what does my readership really know about me? Now, I'm not so pompous as to believe that my readership is massive, but I'm starting to realize that I have at least a few dedicated readers who make my writing not a complete waste of time and effort. And while some of my readership comes from people that know me, another portion of my readership comes from people who do not. So here is a basic and incomplete attempt to remedy that situation.
To start off, my name is Faith. It's an ironic name, since I myself am an atheist. But that's an aside. By way of basic introductions, I am a thirty-seven year old woman who lives in the rural and historical town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I was born and raised in Burlington, Massachusetts, and lived there for a large portion of my life. Burlington is a suburb of Boston, and it's about as white privilege middle class America as you can get.
I got my undergrad degree in Biology from the University of Tennessee. Yes, I spent four years of my life in the south, and I have no desire to spend a single day more there. From a young age I was interested in nursing, and I can honestly say that I always wanted to be a doctor or nurse.
Now, after graduating, I returned to my old stomping grounds, found myself an entry level job in nursing, and bided my time. Life started to slip me by. Then MWO was released. It reinvigorated my interest in the battletech universe, and got me slightly connected to the online Battletech universe. This reinvigorated my connection with the franchise, and started my interest in writing fan-fiction. This sparked a period of growth in my fictional writing as well as my online presence.
Around this time, I moved from Burlington to Hershey, PA. to take a job at the amazing Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Along with a fulfilling job, this also got my education rolling again. I got on track to earn my DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice) and become a CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist)
Somewhere around 2015, things began falling apart. My personal relationships became strained, I faced allegations of cheating in MWO which led to doxxing and online harassment,and life just seemed to be getting more stressful in general. It was at this low point that I happened to attend a skeptics meet-up in Harrisburg.
I've detailed that meeting a little bit in another post, but the main takeaway from it is that I met an absolutely amazing woman who changed my life for the better in so many ways. For those who don't know Sophie, she is an insanely amazing girl. She worked her way through school by serving in the Army and earned her degree to become a clinical lab tech. This is all the more remarkable because so often she had to hide her identity as a lesbian through much of this time. By the time I met her, she had fulfilled her service requirements and earned her certifications, and was able to simply be herself. She and I share a ton of things in common. We're both science geeks, passionate about activism and politics, gamers, and love sci-fi in general. And of course we're both different enough to make things interesting. She loves electronic music and dance, while I can't dance to save my life, sober or drunk. Most days I roll out of the house with as little effort as I can while still looking actually put together. Sophie on the other hand feels like she didn't even try unless she's rocking a corset, boots, and full makeup. I'm a dog person, she's a cat person. She loves dainty little meals, I don't think it's a meal if there's not bacon. And most importantly, I say Liao, she says Davion. I say Wolf's Dragoons, she says Word of Blake. But these are ok, since we both say F*$% the Republic of the Sphere.
As I said in a previous post, my own sexuality up to this point was a mess of confusion and fear. I had always identified as heterosexual, but privately I knew that things were not so simple. I had physical and emotional needs that simply did not fit into a binary box. But it wasn't until Sophie that I had the reason or the courage to actually explore these feelings. Luckily for me, she was not only understanding, but patient with my need to explore myself.
And it has been an amazing journey. I find myself so much better of a person, and so much more comfortable with myself today than I have ever been. I've earned my DNP and have a great job as a CRNA at a small town hospital No, life isn't all rainbows and unicorns, but I am thankful to be able to say that yes, life is really good for me right now.
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