I had the privilege of growing up in a home with both of my parents, a sister who is three years younger, and a brother who is ten years younger. Even though my mom and dad had three siblings each, I still considered my extended family to be fairly small compared to others. My sister and I were the only girls out of 9 grandchildren which definitely roughened us up a bit. My mom's side of the family, the Percy's, were closer-knit than my dad's, so I enjoyed seeing them the most. During my younger childhood years the Percy's would have family gatherings for almost all the holidays throughout the year. We'd all stay at my grandma's ranch in Imperial Valley for a couple of days. It was like this big sleepover with bodies throughout all the rooms of the house. A lot of my good memories come from the time I spent on this ranch. As I entered my high school years we didn't have as many gatherings, but we always saw each other on the big ones like Thanksgiving and Christmas. My years at Channel Islands High School were pretty drama and care-free. I was never the "party type" or had an itch to go out and experiment. I hung out with roughly the same group of people at the spot everyday. I got close to a few of them, but still preferred to rely on myself when it came to big issues. I was, for the most part, content and happy with the way I was. Soon enough, I graduated from high school and decided to start pursuing a higher education at Oxnard College.
At this time in my life, I am attending OC with the hopes of transferring to Pepperdine University in two years with a major in Sociology. I am also excitedly awaiting the two-year mark of the start of my boyfriend and mine's relationship. Since I am still procrastinating on getting my license, my mom helped me to become a licensed daycare provider's assistant to help her with her out-of-home daycare. It has all the qualities of the perfect dream job: flexibility, convenient location, and a steady paycheck. My parents recently getting divorce was somewhat earth-shattering, but I am slowly picking up the pieces and steadily moving on.
When I think of my immediate future, short-term goals like doing my homework ahead of time and finishing a great season of a show on Netflix come to mind. When I imagine my long-term future the first thing I usually think of is having that experience of motherhood, but before I even think about heading down that path I want to be finished with schooling and have some sort of financial stability. I also think about building the love of a lifetime. I want the loving, supportive and consistent partnership that my parents never had. I want to be able to travel the world and try new things together. I do want to have a good career of my choice, but that has always come second to family. To me, family is forever and work is temporary. Ultimately, I just want to have plenty of memories and experiences to fill up a lifetime.
