2000-08-01 - 21:40 or so

So, here�s my condensed life story, draft 1.

I was born two and half months early on October 30, 1971, to Walter and Diane Hartfield. I have three older sisters � Karen, 10 years older, Jennifer, 9 years older, and Melanie, 7 years older. Dad and Mom separated in October 1976. Dad got custody of the kids; Mom moved to the other side of the city.

As my sisters are so much older than myself, by 1982 I was living alone with my father. It wasn�t much fun, but he did what he thought was the best he could do. Academically I did well but socially I did not � there weren�t many kids my age in the neighborhood, so I didn�t have any playmates save the girl who lived across the street, and she was three years younger than myself. As we all know, that was a huge gap at that stage of life. I had kids with whom I was friendly in school, but no one with whom I hung out outside of school. I was pretty miserable, but I didn�t know any different.

On August 26, 1989, I was finally bathed in the light at the end of the tunnel and went to college. Dad had told me that I would get as much financial aid as I needed, and to go to the school that I wanted to go to. Naively, I believed him, and went to Drew University in Madison, NJ. Almost overnight I changed into an outgoing person. I made a lot of friends, some of whom I consider my dearest and are still with today. I did well academically and was just having the time of my life.

However, Drew didn�t give me all the financial aid I needed. It was always a juggling act to see what loans I could apply for and what I could get. Finally, all my efforts came to naught, and I had to leave Drew at the end of summer 1992. This crushed me � it hurt so very much. It still hurts. But back to 1992, I moved back in with my father, which was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do. I temped for a month and then found a software support job that I got because of my work-study experience working in the computer center in college.

I sank into a deep depression the fall and winter of 1992. It got to the point where I couldn�t even decide what to wear or what to eat. I�d sob uncontrollably for no reason. I was sleeping badly. Finally, at my sister Jennifer�s urging, I made an appointment with a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with clinical depression, to be treated with Zoloft. I�ve been on it since June 1993 and am usually the person I know myself to be. Lest you think I�m just a trend follower, just about everyone in my family has been diagnosed with it too, so it�s definitely genetic.

Come 1995, things were ready to change. At work, my micromanaging boss was driving me to distraction. At home, Dad wasn�t being a good landlord. The car, which Grampa had bought me in �92 instead of cosigning my loans so I could go back to college, was on its last legs.

Well, my boss quit when she wasn�t placed in charge of a new department. Ding dong, the witch is dead. Grampa moved into a retirement facility in August 1995 and asked me to move into his house until he could sell it, which I did. And I traded in my old car for my current car, a 1994 Taurus.

I loved living on my own. I paid less rent to Grampa for his whole huge house than I did to Dad for inhabiting one measly bedroom with bad ventilation and light. Of course, it took me 6 months to clean the house of all the accumulated junk Grampa left behind when he moved. But still, it was mine, and it was awesome.

I was taking on more responsibility at work � there was a vacuum caused by my boss� departure and I assumed some of her duties. Things were going well. I applied for a promotion at work and got it in February 1996.

In July 1996, Grampa called me at work one day to say he�d sold the house and to be out ASAP. Yay. So I found an apartment a few miles away. It was only one bedroom, and doesn�t have any of the amenities that the house did, but it was affordable and conveniently located. So I moved there. I was finally on my own, beholden to no one, answering only to myself.

In July of 1997, I went to Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in Hillsdale, New York. It was a life-changing event. I found great music, and by going to performances of the bands I heard, I met wonderful people. In chatting about the bands on the Internet I met even more great people.

Since then, I�ve gone to work, gone to concerts, and done a lot of chatting on the computer. :D

What are my plans for the future? Well, I�d like to finish my degree � I�d like to get some benefit out of the $30,000 I�ve paid so far for it. I�d like to change careers at some point, too. Technical writing�s okay for now but I can�t see devoting my life to it. Romance and family would be nice too, but honestly that�s about the last thing I think about. I�m happy with where I am now.