Autobiography 'I don't know, Jon. Switching paths like that? I'm overwhelmed as it is ... "

"You can do it!" he repeated. "I know you can. I'm telling you, I see this in your future. Plus," he added rather seriously, "I think it's where your talents lay!"

It was I who was voted "class psychologist," in high school, so innate was my predilection for listening to people's problems and offering solutions on the fly. In fact, I had spent the last several years of my life banking on that student-voted accolade, and on the fact that I was good at helping others, that I liked science in general, and that knew I would do well as a clinical worker. Yet here was my friend Jon, a person who I didn't think had any predilection toward helping people, analyzing me like crazy and offering me advice. Plus, he knew I had just spent the last four years of my life struggling through college to earn a Psychology degree.

'You don't know what you're talking about! What do you mean, you 'see this in my future'?" I asked him with a laugh.

"I'm telling you," he said. "You wait and see. You'll say 'I told you so!'"

'Whatever!"

He winked at me before I headed off to work and while I waited for my next student to arrive -- I still work at Disability Access Services offering assistance in English and Psychology -- I grew increasingly annoyed. Who was Jon to tell me what to do with my life? Who did he think he was? I'm focused, I'm determined, I'm

I'm changing.

I looked at my arms. They were toned and firm. I pointed my toes and flexed my quads, proudly feeling the tightness in my muscles. Four years ago I weighed a lot more and I exercised a lot less than I do now. I recall being able to grab my tummy flab and not being able to climb the stairs to class without being out of breath. I remember just a few years back sitting in my...

It was only after I met face-to-face with the terrifying aspects of physical illness that I acknowledged that proper care of the body is equally important as proper care of the mind. Witnessing my parents -- my own flesh and blood -- struggle with health issues sparked in me an interest in improving my lifestyle habits. It was time to become more balanced.
I started by reading trade books that pertained to health, because as a bookworm books are most often my first line of attack. I used to tear through book after book, growing up as an introverted only child. Each book would to me in a different voice, voices that I internalized and would later channel into my own personal writings: journal entries and poetry. I wrote a lot of poetry when I was younger, poetry that helped me to articulate uncomfortable emotions and escape from my parents' loud angry arguments emanating from rooms adjacent to mine. I reacted to an unhappy home life by literally tuning out that which I could not tolerate inwardly, and tuning into a myriad of musical styles from rap to classical. As a result, my teen memories are flooded with images and ideas that I have grasped from reading other peoples' writing and listening to other people's work. Floating around in my head are snippets of every tune I blasted through my headphones and visions of every character I got to know through books. I hid myself away in films, homework, anything in which I could find safety and escape.

Though introverted by nature, I did have lots of good friends in high school, although oddly, most of my close friends were boys. My friendships with boys have always consistently flowed easier than those with girls: I feel comfortable confiding in my male friends and generally enjoy being in predominantly male company. I think I had a tomboy spirit in grade school and still…