1. I just read thru this thread for the first time...& having a hard time believing I didn't look in on this before, or that my fellow pixies could be so open about themselves. (I think I may have missed this before because it appears to have started when I had to take a "sabbatical" from Pixies due to major life crisis...more on that below, maybe)
2. I lost my only brother & both parents within a 6-year period (1992-1998)...all of them to some form of heart disease.
3. Almost 5 years after my mother died, I discovered I wasn't the only one left after all...my half-sister called me, revealing that my mother had her at 17 & gave her up for adoption. She was happy with her life with her adopted family, but was just overwhelmed with curiousity to know more about her biological family. We discovered together that we all may be more about our genes than people want to believe, she is in many ways more like the mother she never met, physically & emotionally as well. Me, I still have a few issues that Mama shared many things I didn't know about her during her final years, but never saw fit to let me in on her darkest secret (that she had to know might come back later)...to say I was gobsmacked at this revelation doesn't even begin to cover it...
4. As a child, I was redheaded with freckles & was chubby & non-atheletic, & was teased mercilessly about it...having an Irish short fuse probably means I gave them the reaction they wanted, & compounded the situation. To this day, I detest bullying in any form. Which sort of brings me to...
5. I have always had a hard time watching movies or TV shows where people are helplessly bullied...I get really angry inside, my BP goes sky high, & sometimes I have to leave the room to avoid lashing out at someone I shouldn't.
6. My brother was 7 years older than I, I knew I was an "accident" early on...my mother confessed that my brother was such a handful, they really didn't plan to do it again, but that I was never unloved because of it, & I do believe I had a loving (if somewhat dysfuntional) upbringing. With all that, you might think I try to avoid spacing my own children at such a wide interval; you would be wrong
7. In 2003, I was diagnosed with diabetes after developing a painful urinary tract infection that wouldn't go away on its own. A few months later I lost my last job (I admit I knew my career track was coming to an end anyway). Shortly after that, I developed severe back problems, eventually leading me to apply for SS disability, which finally started paying around Aug. last year. At year's end, I felt compelled to let my family know that I appreciated having them there thru that year in Hell.
8. Maybe a more postive note, I developed a love of music at a very early age (thanks to that older brother, who turned me on to R&B and Rock before I was even a kindergardener)...my ambition was be a rock star someday, of course it didn't happen, but I still play with a band of other old farts like myself, & still get that buzz when we do play in front of a crowd, kinda like jumping into the bath with a plugged-in toaster...
9. My father's 47th birthday was exactly one week before I was born.
10. After my mother died, I found their marriage certificate, which revealed that she was pregnant with my brother when they got hitched...hmm, Im beginning to see a pattern here