rachel's prospective on my life and my mental mindset

as i prepare for surgery and funding it on February 6, 2015 here is an email to a friend.

hi


i think in the wake of my mother's death and the death of paterno (PENN STATE)  was a one two punch for me.  I tried to brush it off in the moment and the speech helped but it has taken this long to move forward because on that day i saw my mother's death on line with paterno overwhelmed to the point i did not know what to do. 

i grew up with my uncle attending penn state and he graduated in the 60's and was very proud of penn state. I looked up to him almost like a father figure because he worked as a milk man or whatever while paying for psu with the help of the GI Bill via the army.  thus i really wanted to attend penn state and it was my dream to graduated from psu and that i accomplished.

i lived a gifted live relative so so many in society with two tours in the marines, big time school education, sales career and raised my daughter for 13 /18 yrs by myself. i really moved away from what my family wanted me to do and i have achieved independence of what I have accomplished in my life on my own terms.

i had a low GPA going into my senior year and i consciously made a decision to take on three 400 level courses only to have my father die during that semester. i could have rolled over and pulled out of college but i pushed forward because even since my father was the first to die that was close to me i understood the goal was important to me.

i realize now that Penn State and the Marines have so much in common. first the PSU motto is "excellence" and from the marine prospective we strive for excellence and we never quit and we find a way to win. this is so much part of my life that i just put it together today.

if remember so many doubted PSU would beat Miami but we had faith and we had a player that was not very tall as a defender called ray " the hitman" iceman. we, the fans, nicknamed him that because once he hit you , you usual went down hard.  i have worked hard all of my life but i could not put the pieces together until now.

i am a winner like my role models in society and we never quit and winning is not assured but we seem to find a way to win.

.... helped me go from a transgendered woman to simply a woman that is all i ever wanted to do. i am a country girl with simply and strong values.now i have to go through surgery for all the people that help me get here and all the girls that never make it this far. it is for all of you and me. the game is on the line and i want the ball.  i think i just blended the past with the present and i am going to talk to my friend in portland about thailand again. she goes great if not i am going even if i have to take 3k and pack my belonging into a storage shed.