Heather

I heard once that people are really actually just stories walking around, bringing a whole host of experiences, learned things, whether from parents or work or study or other experiences. We see things all in a pretty unique way.

So, that is Chezwhat?...a story of sorts, bits and pieces, the way things hit me, based on the collection of experiences that have changed how I see. That “way” changes quite regularly with new challenges or good things. One thing I have learned is the importance of adapting and change, and allowing other people the chance to do the same thing.

Some experiences informing my writing are growing up in a rich country in the Pacific Northwest, which is beautiful, in a suburb, which was not. Leaving home at 17, working many, many small jobs and eventually attending college.

Somewhere in there I decided to follow the teachings of Jesus. That was about when the light in the room of my life was turned on. Finished school in Portland, Oregon in a panic. I had been a homewrecker, an employee at a major coffee retailer, and a student in Ecuador, which more than most things changed my perspective.

I studied Spanish and wanted to teach overseas. I was hired by a school in Colombia but chose Peace Corps, who sent me to Russia, and again I was language learning, among other things. There I learned many other things, like how to connect with people and that every day in another country was way more exciting than one at home. An expat is born.

Returning home with numinous student debt, I could not teach overseas. After working the vacuum of the internet startup world for a year or two, I decided to return to school to be certified to teach Spanish. After which time I was hired to teach ESL to mainly Spanish speakers and Russian speakers in an urban high school. I got married. I had a child. This experience also changed me, possibly more than Russia or Ecuador, as I began a new education on how to nurture, and how much that really fed my soul.

I had a second child in 2007. Now I was really a mom.

My husband had a previous marriage, I had no idea how much this would effect my life. When his son died in 2011, everything began to change again. I had never known death, much less death of a young, talented beautiful child.

As of this writing, the education is of the type that happens outside of the classroom and I look still for the chance to be that expat.