About Me
Who am I? I’m Morgan Storm Owens. My favorite color is blue, and I like to read. Those are probably the two most important things about me.
I was born in Tallahassee, Florida, to two incredibly awesome and loving parents. My dad is an environmental protection lawyer who has worked for both the Florida and Broward governments. He’ll (hopefully) be working for Miami-Dade soon. My mom has a doctorate in anthropology from Yale (yeah I’m fine with bragging about that) and is an archaeologist who studies children and gender in the Maya. Up until a few months ago has been an anthropology and archaeology professor at UM (the University of Miami). She is now the Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Civic Involvement for the College of Arts and Sciences there, in addition to being an associate professor of anthropology and being the director of the women’s and gender studies program. She’s pretty awesome.
They were both Wiccan before they had me and I’m willing to guess that they’ll be Wiccans for the rest of their lives. They are the high priest and priestess, respectively (duh) of our coven, and inspire me to be as religious as they are. They brought me up Wiccan, always telling me that they were fine with it if I didn’t want to be religious or if I even wanted to practice a different religion.
Back to my childhood, though. Like I said, I was born in Tallahassee, I say that I grew up there, though the truth is that I only stayed there until I was six. The summer of my sixth birthday (which is July 18th, I remember moving right after my party), we moved down to Miami. I enrolled in elementary school at George Washington Carver Elementary and since then I’ve grown up quite a bit.
I was (and still am, I suppose) pretty tall, and I like that. I don’t think I could handle being short. It’d be really incredibly strange. As much as I love diversity (it’s one of the reasons why I secretly love Miami, even though I say I hate it), I love my blue eyes. I could probably live with dark hair, but I really like my eyes. I’m pretty attached to them.
I’ve grown up with a younger brother, Cyrus Flint Owens, who is two years and a month younger than me. He and I are opposites in almost every manner: height, weight, eyes, hair, style, voice, interests, demeanor, everything. I don’t hate him for it, but it can get to be really grating when somebody is just so incredibly ideologically different from you. He’s going to Reef (Coral Reef Senior High School, my high school), for engineering.
I’ve always loved learning. I like to learn about math, about science, about English, about language in general, about history, about medicine, about Wicca, about other religions (something I find fascinating), about any and every thing. This is NOT to say that I like school. School is one of the most painful experiences imaginable. That being said, I went to the number one magnet middle school in the state for middle school and Coral Reef is ranked nationally for its general awesomeness. I don’t deal well with mediocrity. I took only one AP course freshman year and beat myself up over that.
In eighth grade, when I was choosing what high school to attend, I chose to do the IB programme (it’s how they spell it, not I) at Reef. It basically means that, in addition to making sure we meet Florida’s basic standards of education (which are not exactly stellar), I also have to be evaluated to prove that I have completed the IBO’s requirements for learning. The idea is to provide a world-class education that carries meaning no matter where you are. The result is a lot of work.
In the past few years, I’ve discovered that I have a love for writing. It was spurred into action in eighth grade, writing love poems. From then onward, I’ve written about more diverse topics (thankfully). As much as I might seem like the science and math kid, I really do love history and writing and literature just as much if not more.
As I said a few paragraphs ago, I love reading. Reading defined my life in elementary and middle school, the same way that for many people who they hung out with defined who they were. Thankfully, I’m not as shut-in any more, but I still LOVE books. Books give us a place where we can run off to for a while, and let somebody else do the thinking. We don’t need to worry about what we’re going to do, because somebody else has created a whole WORLD of events happening for us to be a part of. We can let go of our concerns, troubles, and tears for a while and immerse ourselves in a world where we just have to observe what others do. This is why I love reading. It lets me get away from what’s around me.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve noticed that a lot of the things I like are similar in that regard. They let me get away from things. I love being at Tyler’s house (he’s my best friend) because I am away from my brother, who is always at my home. I love reading because I can get away from EVERYTHING around me. I love music because I don’t have to listen to what people are saying. I love writing because I can create a world in and of its own, where people don’t need to worry about what I do. I love being with my friends because that means I (usually) am not having to think about the more negative things in my life. Get the idea?
At the same time, however, I am most definitely a realist. I don’t sugar-coat things to try to make them seem nicer, and I resent people who do. Life is hard. Life isn’t always pretty. Bad things happen. Our job in life is to not only get through these hardships, but to emerge from them all as better and stronger human beings. To create a life in which we can call ourselves successful, happy, and complete. This can only happen if we look at things realistically. As much as I love “getting away”, there are many times at which point we need to hunker down and deal with it, whatever “it” is.
Now that I’ve gone and sounded all cryptic and weird, it’s time for me to finish this up cause this has taken much longer than I thought it would.
If you’ve gotten this far down the many paragraphs of text, I’m truly touched and rather surprised, to be honest. I’m adding this little (“little”) paragraph in on March 13, 2012. I felt like I was missing one fairly important part of how I describe myself. One thing many people may not get or know if they only meet me in person is that I have fairly deep-set self-esteem issues. I hope this doesn’t come off as cliche, or stereotypical (although it is), and many people may say “well if you KNOW you have self-esteem issues, how do you still have them?” It’s not so simple as all that. The belief that you yourself are worth really very little at all is insidious and hard to change, particularly after years of reinforcement. As you might (or might not) know, I have not had a single truly successful (in my opinion) relationship. I blame myself for that and some would say that is the source of my problems. Others would say that my issues stem from how I am treated at home, and yet others would say it’s because of what’s expected from me at school. Regardless, the point of this inserted paragraph is to let you know that for all the icy exterior you might see, the underbelly is truly soft, sore, and hurting. If you follow me closely enough here on Tumblr I’m sure that’s been made obvious to you; mostly because of the fact that I have given up on my Tumblr being something to present to others and have instead turned it into what I always wanted it to be: a pressure valve for my mind and mentality.
That’s me.
If I have somehow managed to miss anything (I’m sure I have), the ask button is nearby ;)
