My name is Alicia. I was born in 1976. I’m the kind of person who says things like, “I was born in 1976” instead of telling you that I’m 33 because I’m lazy and don’t want to have to update this page. Even though I subscribe completely to the idea that I’m not the same person now that I was when I started writing this a few minutes ago. And I, most definitely, will not be the same person I am right now (which is different than the person I was when I wrote that last sentence) by the time you read this.
But maybe, if I tell you about myself, you can frame me in some way, put me in some context in your head. I always like to contextualize, and maybe you do too. You should.
So, I was born in Texas in 1976. My family (and when I talk about my family, I’m almost always talking about my mother’s side, unless I specify that I’m talking about my father’s side) is really Illinois ilk, but my grandfather was in the military, and they moved around a lot — all over the world, really — until he retired from the Marines in the 1970s. They settled in Texas, where one of my grandmother’s sisters lived. I grew up in a suburb of Dallas.
To understand me, you have to understand my family.
My parents weren’t married when they found out my mom was pregnant. They got married a few months before I was born, and they were young, so that didn’t work out so well. They got divorced when I was just a few years old, so I only have a couple of flashbulb memories of us living together as a family. My mom started dating my stepdad when I was in kindergarten, so he’s pretty much always been in my life. They got married when I was seven, and my little brother was born when I was 10.
My dad died a few days after I turned 11. If you read me for any length of time, you will read about this. It continues to define me and my life to this day. I didn’t really talk about it much when I was growing up – and I didn’t know any other kids like me – so I’m all about getting it out of my brain and trying to process and make sense of it now.
Me and my dad in about 1980:
After that, there were some awkward years…
Fast forward to college.
I got my undergrad degree in psychology at Bard College in upstate New York. That place made me a thinking, logical, critical, rational, socially and politically aware human being.
I met Bradley in the summer of 1996 when I was home from New York for the summer. He was the absolute smartest person I’d ever met, and I could tell we were alike in a lot of ways (like being breathtakingly smart, heh). We started dating in March of 1997 when he and some friends came to visit me in New York. Falling in love with him was maybe the best experience of my life. Like finding religion or something.
We got married in August 1998. This was mostly a pragmatic move; we were already committed and mostly living together at the time, but we did the whole wedding deal anyway.
I started graduate school in Austin in the fall of 1999, and Brad decided he was tired of programming and went back for a second bachelor’s degree and teaching certification in 2000. We were both in school when our first child, Kieran, was born in April 2001.
Kieran, 8 years, August 2009:
Brad graduated (again) and started teaching computer science in 2003. I graduated with a Ph.D. in educational psychology in May 2004, and our second child, Anneke (Dutch, rhymes with “Hanukkah”), was born less than two weeks later.
Anneke, 5 years, August 2009:
We moved back to Dallas, where both our families lived, and I stayed home with the two bigs for a year. I taught middle school (special ed and math) for three years in a suburb of Dallas, and our third baby, Griffon, was born in May 2007.
Griffon, 2 years, August 2009:
We moved back to Austin in early 2008 (because Austin is Teh Awesome of Texas), and I found out I was pregnant with our fourth (final) child that September. Archer was born in May 2009.
Archer, 2 months, August 2009:
Which takes me to NOW.
I work full-time (and part-time at another job), and I travel quite a bit for work. I like to be busy. I write mostly about my kids because parenting is the part of my life that challenges me the most. And I like to be challenged.
Politically, I am pretty much a bleeding-heart liberal commie. This is not to say I align with a certain party. I think for myself, for sure. It’s just that when I think, I’m almost never thinking the same thing any Republican is thinking. And philosophically, I guess I’m mostly a pacifist. I think it’s important to treat people with kindness and respect. I am not the warmest person, myself, so I always wonder if this translates into how people see me.
Probably not.
Welcome to my brain.
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Also, I should add: Beth is my last name. I have a spouse and four children. There are six of us Beths. Bethsix. Clever, no?
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