Hello world!

If all the world is a stage, then I have spent the better part of my life enjoying my cheap seat up in the balcony. Some would disagree wholeheartedly with that statement, as I have always been the loud one in any given group in any given way. And yes, I have given performances of melodramatic proportions that would give Katharine Hepburn a run for her Oscars. But the times I have felt the most right with myself have been the years I sat quietly (well, as quietly as my big mouth allowed) watching it all unfold and keeping private notes.

 For as long as I have existed I have always been two things:

First, a writer.
Not necessarily a profound writer, nor ever a prodigy of the English language, but I was one who wrote. Diaries, journals, letters, poems, stories. The first time I can remember sitting down to write was in a small pink diary given to me by someone (with prophetic abilities?) at a birthday party where I was turning an age where I still had birthday parties and still appreciated the color pink. I sat down at my desk and wrote an entry about my desire to have a good education. I sat at that desk with my dull pencil for the better part of an hour painstakingly forming the letters I had only recently learned to form and carefully “sounding out” my way through “education” (which came out more like “ejukashun”). I wrote it down and it suddenly felt real. It was the first glimpse of what I would come to understand as ”writing to survive.” A year or two later Jean and Lou, my parent’s long-time friends, bought Brooke and I matching unicorn journals for Christmas. Jean had written in the front cover of mine, ”Ashley, Now you have somewhere to write all those terrible things about your parents…” My mom, upon reading this line aloud to me, stopped to half scoff, half laugh a little. I didn’t understand why that would make her pause, perhaps because I was already privately thinking “But, I already have something to write those terrible things in…” These would not be my last two journals. I have kept one continuously since then and have come quite far from writing “terrible” things about my parents, though I must admit my education continues to claim more than it’s fair share of pages.

The second thing I have always been is unapollogetically me. I have always been transparent, emotional, passionate, and conflicted. At times I am irreverent. More often than not I am outspoken and argumentative. I am opinionated. I am stubborn. I am selfish. I have crafted a sleeve out of the heart that refuses to reside anywhere else. I am human, to an unfortunate degree. I make mistakes more than I make corrections. I am a 24 year old with a blankie, and a running joke about it being the maid of honor at my future wedding (Can you imagine the look on my sister’s face upon learning that she would take a back seat to a dirty old pillowcase in my wedding? Or how about the bouquet toss that can only end in tears and shreds of blue fabric?). The most important aspect of my personality, I think, is that I simply refuse to be someone who hides. I am who I am because I posess each afformentioned personality trait (and then some) and never will I ever deny them because it is my honor to learn from them. I am, in no way, proud of everything I’ve done. I, in no way, believe in having “no regrets”. I am, however, proud of who I am becoming and that I can use those regrets to boost me up a rung on the ladder. This is my journey.

In tandem these two aspects of Ashley Rosalie Tippin result in what can only be described as an introspective word web of life as I know it. Now, I’ve moved from the plush red velvet balcony seat of observation to the unforgiving directors chair (and still, no one to fetch me coffee). I am going public with my affair with the pen and paper. Expect honesty. Expect it to be raw. Expect it to be real. Expect no apologies. I’m going to show you everything I know about being gigantic.