Ouch, I've been tagged!

I’m not a fan of memes but tried it a few times and discovered a strange kind of freedom that came with sharing snippets of myself. Still I don't respond to every tag that comes my way. This time my friend Jan Lundy over at Awake is Good tagged me. I had so much fun reading her responses that I thought I'd give it a try.

7 things you may not know about me:

1. From the moment I envisioned my dream to be a writer, whenever my mother scolded me i would respond with a letter explaining and apologizing for whatever I had done. Only when I became an adult did she tell me that she enjoyed reading my letters because in them she could trace my maturity.

2. My father died on October 25th 2007 and even now the pain is so fresh, so raw and so deep, that I still can’t talk about it or him without emotional blood flooding my heart.

3. I am an avid collector of kitchen gadgets, pens, teapots, journals and baskets.

4. I dream of the day when I could live alone, completely alone. As a teenager I used to insist that I will not get married until I had a chance to live by myself. It didn’t happen and the dream is still alive.

5. I am a silent rebel. My husband was the first person to see it, say it and feel the effects of my silent rebellion.

6. I was a real push over until I reached my mid-thirties. That’s when I began drilling in my own head that when I reach forty I will no longer take crap from anybody. The drilling worked too. Silent rebellion coupled with taking-no-crap helped me to stand, fight and defeat efforts by family members and friends to make me conform to their version of who I should be, control and limit me and stifle my dreams.

7. I want to be a speaker. Sure I’m scared like hell even to admit it. But I read a post recently at Good Life Zen that inspired me to speak it out loud. This meme gives me the chance to own it and share it.

Who did I tag?

Sita Henderson at Sita’s Sanctum
Joanne deMaio at Whole Latte Life
Terri Tiffany at Terri Tifanny Inspirational Writer
Hope Wilbanks at Hope Writes
Magnolia Miller at Magnolia Diaries Vol II
Brenda Friedrich at Enroute 365
MaryAnn Diorio at The Write power

The rules…

1. Link to your original tagger and list these rules in your post.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself in the post.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.