My Story

     My story started in small town Southern Illinois. As the oldest child, the first five years of my life were quiet. Living in a rural area meant there weren’t other neighborhood children to play with. Playing meant using my imagination and making my desires come to life with my mind. I made my own friends, cooked with mud in the yard, and went to far away lands on my swing set. My imagination knew no limits.

     When I was five we moved to St. Louis with a new little brother in tow. Living in a new place, my parents were cautious. Other kids were free to roam the neighborhood, while I was only allowed to play in the backyard.  Going to school meant learning to read, which led me to love books. Making friends was hard, when the bullying started, I began to keep to myself. The kids didn’t like my clothes, I had asthma, and it wasn’t cool to use and inhaler. I read too much and liked Little House on the Praire, and that wasn’t the status quo. Over the span of kindergarten to fifth grade, between moving several times, my parents divorce, and being bullied, I changed schools multiple times, and making friends as the new kid was impossible.

 Things again changed, and my mom remarried and had two more children. During this time in my new life with my new family, I would see my first spirit.  One day while getting ready for church in my room t and needed to ask my mom something, so I went to find her. I saw something as I was walking, then I felt as thought I bumped into someone. When I looked , I saw a man, but some of him seemed solid, yet other parts seemed to be opaque. He smiled at me and then disappeared. I screamed, and ran to my mom and told her what happened. She gave me a strange look and didn’t really have much to say about what I had told her, but I was terrified. I couldn’t sleep, had to have a light on at all times, and was scared to be alone. A few days later, she showed me a newspaper clipping of an article about a car accident from the 80’s, and on the clipping was a picture of the man I had seen! The man turned out to be my mom’s cousin who had passed away, and the day that I saw the apparition, was in fact his death date!  

   After a time, we moved back to Illinois, and I started middle school and began to forget about my encounter, then eventually moved on to high school. As I got older the strict control of my parents increased. Between no activities on school nights, lists of chores, and helping care for my siblings, I often felt older than I was, and teachers would refer to me as an old soul. People outside my friend group would often come to me for advice.  Among my friends, I was known for my keen judgment of character, and I wasn’t afraid to call people out on their treatment of others. My intuition and  empathy were such a huge part of me, I just didn't realize it at the time that it even had a name.

     The closer I got to my senior year, my parents had specific ideas about direction my life should be going.  My step father became more and more controlling and I couldn’t take the pressure. My dad offered to let me to move in with him. While living with him, I finished my senior year of high school a semester early, and went on to the local community college.  

     Then, I met my husband at a halloween party, and it turned out he lived only a few houses down the street from my dad. He was leaving for basic training in the Navy, and though I didn't want to start anything with someone who was leaving, we became inseparable. 

    During our time in Virginia with the Military, I started hair school, or really hair high school.  Through all the drama of school, I developed social anxiety,  I would have panic attacks, and hide in the bathroom to escape. I again faced unruly bullies, but this time as an adult.  After I finished school, I got a job in a small salon and my dad and brother came to live with me after he got laid off from his job in St. Louis. The timing was perfect since my husband was deployed. 

   After a long ten month deployment, my husband returned and we had our first little girl, Ardell, named after my great grandmother. While another deployment approached, as well  end of his contract with the Navy, we made the decision for him not to reenlist and to return to home to be closer to our families.

            When we moved back I found that my friends had moved on, and we were no longer in the same place in our lives. In need of advice, I went for a  psychic reading with a friend of my mom’s, which led me to a local metaphysical store, where I met my teacher Julia Marie. After her basic introduction to spiritual development, everything changed for me, and my inner voice was validated. I took every class I could possibly take, including the Introduction to Mediumship. In these classes, I learned that your intuition comes from the same place as your imagination, and I knew I was destined for this work.  For the next eight years, I sat in a weekly development circle and found myself speaking for those who couldn’t be heard, and I found my calling.