Sandy Beaches, Rocky Roads

I was born the second of three children. During my childhood, adolescent, and early adulthood years, I was very shy and withdrawn. I sought refuge in playing the piano, winning an award at the age of eleven. Math, algebra, and geometry were my worst subjects. However, I excelled in spelling, English, and geography. I won an award for spelling at age 13. For many years, I had eye and dental problems, I was overweight, and I had terrible acne, in additon to severe migraines.
In my early 20s, I was sent to workshops by a mental institution, earning only minuscule paychecks and becoming more depressed, as the staff treated clients as low level. Chronic unemployment was a problem for nine years after high school graduation. I passed the time by singing in my church choir for five years. I was an object of ridicule for being unemployed and not driving.
I studied Spanish in high school, then I attended college in my 20s and 30s. Due to legal and emotional problems, it took me ten years to obtain a certificate in Office Administration. I entered the Liberal Studies program at my local college, and also studied legal courses. Some of my interests were singing, reading, writing poetry, and volunteering at a local theater. I took part in high school plays, then in a college play in my 40s. Volunteer work included filing and stuffing envelopes at a hospital and serving in the gift shop, and being a reader at the Association for the Blind.
I was raised Catholic, but I dropped out of the church for 25 years because of my frustration at the way my life was going, (or rather, not going). I was considered handicapped, paranoid schizophrenic, and treated as though I was retarded by my family and staff and patients in the hospital and halfway houses. I returned to the church and began volunteering as a religious education teacher, then became a lector and Eucharistic minister. I sang religious psalms and hymns in two churches. I grew out of my shyness and became more sociable, acquiring a few close friends. I saved two patients' lives by getting an ambulance for my roommate who had taken an overdose in our apartment; then I found a woman starting to hang herself in the bathoom in the hospital. I alerted staff. I also spoke in Spanish to comfort an emergency client who was upset and frightened at being in the hospital ( I myself was an inpatient at the time, and staff asked me to speak to her). I obtained employment as a homemaker, a clerical worker, a substitute teacher, and a cleaner through my own efforts and with the help of a vocational club I attend. Traveling was always something I had dreamed of doing, and I finally went on several religious pilgrimages, beginning in 2010.
There were setbacks in my life, such as being terminated from theater ushering because they said I was disrupting a performance, then I was almost terminated from a clerical program because they said I was not sociable enough. Male-female relationships didn't work out either, and I was blamed for most of what happened. I have been a bell-ringer for the Salvation Army for 27 years. I am close to getting a degree in Liberal Studies - all I need is math courses. In October 2024, I went on a pilgrimage to Italy, and I feel refreshed and blessed. Life contains both sandy beaches and rocky roads.