oddball.

I would never come right out and say that I am the oddball of the family, but the more that I think about it, the more my senses point me in that direction.

Take for instance, our birthdays. My dad's birthday is July 31st, my mom's, August 4th. Kathleen was born July 13th and Karley, August 16th. Me? I was born months earlier then the rest of my family, in the rainy month of April. It doesn't seem strange, until you are presented with a situation, like I will be next weekend, when I am the only one not celebrating a birthday. Kathleen is coming for a visit from Michigan, and because of the rare occasion of all five of us being together, it was decided to have a birthday celebration extravaganza (minus Kelsey).

This does not bother me. I have enjoyed having my birthday in April. I enjoy having something to look forward to during the school year, in the months where summer is so close, and yet so far. I've enjoyed having a birthday that is almost completely opposite of Christmas, providing me with the opportunity to always have something to look forward to once the other occasion is over.

I have my own time of year, it's perfectly fine with me.

Another oddball attribute? I am the tallest of the girls, and almost as tall as my dad. Where the odd height gene come from? Well, my dad has a very tall father and older brother, and my mom also has a tall father and older brother. Maybe it's the oldest sibling thing? Who knows.

I have learned to like my height. I use to absolute loathe the fact that I was tall when I was younger, especially in junior high. It's never a good thing, as a girl, to tower over all the boys your age. After a year or two of being teased for my height, I found a solution. Direct my attention towards the older, and therefore taller, boys. This worked beautifully, and I ended up being a step ahead of my girlfriends, who followed shortly after, by confessing their crushes on the boys a year older than us.

Last but not least, my undying love for my English classes. My dad studied business, and is a business man through and through. My mom studied accounting, and while she works hard at everything she does, she does tend to have that creative mind usually associated with those more right brain characteristics (she's secretly like me, but doesn't know it). Kathleen, studying to be a Physician's Assistant is into the math and sciences, and loves learning about how and why things work. Karley is a die hard math geek, she is just so smart when it comes to numbers, that I am often boggled by how comfortable she is when breezing through her algebra and geometry formulas. Me? I have always been the only one who fell in love with the subjective. I love the openendedness, the questions, the contemplation, the depth and the intuition that distinguishes the Language Arts from its competing subjects.

While I cannot account for my, shall I call them "unique" qualities, I can say that I'm perfectly happy with them. Things that I use to be self-conscious about in my youth, have become the same things that have distinguished me as an individual. Yes, I may rely more on the right side of my brain, I may stretch a couple of inches taller, and I may be a spring baby, but I am still an Olson, and what greater thing is there than belonging to a family like mine? I can't think of one.