Hello! I’m Angela, the primary writer, so please forgive any grammatical errors!

When posed with the challenge of writing about yourself, many questions come to mind. The main ones being, “How much do I tell? Should this be about my history or about me now?” I’ve lived my life as an open book. Thankfully, we don’t live our lives in solitude. But, this presents the problem of the privacy of those who are involved in our life. In lieu of that, I’ll err on the side of caution when it comes to shared experiences. In response to the second question, I think a little bit of my past and present provides a succinct synopsis of the ridiculous creature that is me.

As Julie Andrews says, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”

I was born and raised in the Great Lakes state of Michigan in a primarily Filipino family. Now, if you know anything about Filipinos, you know that we are VERY family oriented. My Filipino mother was the first of our family to immigrate to the US, followed shortly by 5 of the 11 siblings. I was raised as an only child, kinda. Now, I realize nothing can replace brothers and sisters. But, for as long as I can remember, my cousins and I were CONSTANTLY together. I was either at their house or they at mine. We even lived together for a small portion of time. My family raised me and they are the reason I’m who I am today. I grew up in a suburban lakeside town with a prevalent sailing community. That being said, I didn’t have any interest in sailing until adulthood.

I grew up a very sensitive child, who wanted nothing more than to fit in and be liked. This was only exacerbated by my parents divorce. Don’t get me wrong, I had a happy childhood and was never without. Whenever I felt comfortable, the word most often used to describe me was goofy. But in settings outside of my comfort zone, I was, to the outside world, VERY shy. Most who know me now, don’t believe that, but it’s true. As an empath, I quickly realized that making others happy makes me happy; mix that with crippling insecurity makes for a dangerous combination. So, what’s a little girl to do? Make others happy of course! Rather than testing my boundaries, exploring and learning about what makes me me (because that thought was terrifying), I followed the paths of others and adapted my goals to emulate theirs. As a result, I learned a healthy amount of human psychology to further anticipate other’s wants/needs without being explicitly told. I became the ultimate pretender, because if I liked/valued/loved the same things as others around me; I would not only fit in and BE loved but never be left alone. Let me just say, if I didn’t have the family I do; my life could’ve turned out drastically different. Now don’t misunderstand, none of this was malicious or purposeful in the moment. I realized the rationale behind my actions after therapy and deep introspection.

Fast forward to adulthood and I turned my well honed skills into a career. My love of taking care of others, biology, and inherent people pleasing nature made nursing the perfect career choice for me. After building some self-esteem outside of what I am to others, I started to “find myself”. I made some very difficult decisions and for my 30th birthday I decided to travel ALONE to a completely foreign country. This was very difficult to do as most people thought I was insane. This trip was HUGE for me as it sparked not only my love of adventure and exploration but more importantly, it cemented faith in myself. With this one trip, I proved to myself that I can be brave without someone behind me, supporting me AND I learned that people’s love for me is not contingent on me doing what I think they want me to do. Something that I knew deep down but didn’t have enough faith in myself to put it to the test.

This started my journey of learning who I am, who I want to be and loving every minute! I found myself purposely stepping outside of my self-defined comfort zone and learning that the world is not so scary a place with endless things to discover. It was now that I met my partner, my other half in life, Jon.

One of the first things we bonded over was that growth, while never comfortable, is essential to a life well lived. One cannot know the heights you’re capable of, without challenging yourself. But challenging yourself is never easy. Opening up to someone new, trying a sport you have no experience in, allowing yourself the possibility to fail. All of these things are very difficult. But the reward is so very worth the risk! That doesn’t mean everything always works out because believe me, I have failed in very big ways. But in that moment, when you’ve reached and come up short, that moment is when true growth happens. You learn, you grow, you continue moving forward with new knowledge to become the best version of you. Someone you can be proud of. Work to be the person who inspires you! Calculated risk is necessary to success, however you define it.