personal

As the end of the millennium approached, I found myself in a tricky situation: temporarily homeless & without a job. No worries. I had plenty of options but needed time to figure things out. I returned to my mother’s apartment in Memphis, slept on the couch & occasionally borrowed her car when I needed a bit of breathing room. Mom also got me a temp job… at the same company where she worked & reporting directly to her. A crazy situation, for sure, but she really helped me out. When I could return to Seattle, I had a lot of decisions to make…

Why not move across country? In Memphis I had a full-time laboratory job, a part-time weekend job at the YMCA, & plenty of time to hang out with friends. But I got restless. No doubt those two visits to San Diego during college inspired me to keep looking west.

College time! I applied to several across the entire US & was accepted to most, so the decision was not easy. Northwestern University in Chicago seemed perfect, but financial aid figures just didn’t add up; my mom’s income couldn’t handle the extra cost. In the end, being a Tennessee resident meant that I qualified for extra grants if I stayed in-state. Plus, I’d won a hefty Rotary Club scholarship that could only be used locally. So I stayed put in Memphis. Rhodes College may be an expensive, private university, but I went almost for free. And I got to live on campus…

Let’s continue this journey! After a bumpy start with me, Memphis seemed to hit the spot for my parents. Not only did my dad make a decent income, but we were almost exactly in between both sets of relatives: a mid-point between Iowa & Florida. Grandparents could visit us easily & we could visit them, but more important for me was growing up & going to school in Memphis. Those formative years (19 of almost 50) are the longest I’ve spent in a single place so far. And surprisingly, almost all in the same apartment…