Was the last thing you read digital or print?

Shoot! I’m early starting the questions this week so I can’t peek to see if Melanie means the last thing I finished reading or the last thing I literally laid eyeballs on to read. The last item finished is almost always online these days – the last posts I read were at Herding Chickens and This, That, And The Other. The last books I picked up are The Hate U Give and Becoming because for the life of me I can’t seem to finish either one.

Are you more an extrovert or introvert?

Definitely introvert. For years I bought into the idea that the role I played was, you know, me. Friendly, outgoing, sociable, enthusiastic, always up for meeting new people – I mean, I survived growing up Navy, of course I’m an extrovert. I never considered how much of me is learned coping skills and how much is actually my nature.

How is your life different from what you imagined as a younger person?

I wasn’t terribly imaginative in college when I pictured our life together – it pretty much looked like me and BrightSide, rock solid, having some kids, setting down roots in a community but traveling as much as we could. I pictured myself teaching until we had children then staying home with them…my imagination never quite took me to plans once they were school age, though, so the rest is a blank.

BrightSide and I are hanging strong with these two great kids. The adoption part was a surprise, as was becoming a transracial family. I didn’t teach as long as I thought I would – that’s not at all how I imagined things working out. And it’s totally weird that so much of my family settled in a ninety mile radius. Picturing us living near one another never even entered my mind.

Do you think about dying?   Does death scare you?  Why or why not?

I’m not sure that I think about dying in anything more than an offhand way. Occasionally a thought flips through like “if anything ever happens to me I sure hope somebody remembers to feed the cat” but I doubt that rises to the level of thinking about it. I guess it’s fair to say I’m not preoccupied with death. As for the scary factor – nope, death itself doesn’t scare me. It is what it is. I worry more about what will happen for the people I leave behind here.

You’ll have to visit Melanie’s post to check out her Gratitude Scavenger Hunt. I’ll be doing these but the one I’ll put here is “Find something that you’re thankful for in nature.”

There’s something stunningly majestic about a tree, isn’t there?

Bonus gratitude question: Who has been the kindest to you in your life?

This is a strange question to answer only because so many people have shown up in different ways throughout my life. If we’re talking superlatives, though, I’d have to say BrightSide. He’s shown kindness, patience, gentleness, and grace in countless ways over the years.

Sparks from a Combustible Mind hosts Share Your World.