The making of a list-aholic

I attended a training session last year where the participants were asked to form a group and get to know each other a bit better. First, we had to identify a memory from our childhood that we feel most defined us as an adult. Then we had to create something out of aluminum foil (see, Trung, I didn’t say “tin” foil! I’m learning) to represent this. It was a very hard task to do, but I learned a whole heck of a lot about the people in my group after we finished.

The childhood memory that I picked was cutting and stacking wood. Isn’t that funny? Here is why I believe that childhood memory truly shaped me into the person that I am today.

1. Family is very important to me. We had to do this activity out of necessity – we heated our house with a wood burning stove. My parents made sure to make this a family event, though – again, probably out of necessity so they didn’t have to do it all themselves, but still, we did it as a family. We had traditions that surrounded this activity and everyone had their roles.

2. Organization is critical to me. I know, this may be a shock to some of you J. I believe that stacking the wood in the precise piles brought on this obsession in me. (note, I’m sure that Dad had good reasons for the obsession with the stacking, but Kelly & I always approached it as a way to ensure it didn’t fall down when we lowered poor Heather through the basement window when we locked ourselves out of the house)

3. I am extremely self-sufficient, even to a fault at times. Like I mentioned earlier, we had to do this activity every year to keep ourselves warm in the winter. I learned from my parents that I needed to do whatever it took to survive. Now, don’t go thinking that we lived in a one-room shack on the edge of the woods. It was nothing like that. Finances were tough, sure, but my parents saw this as a logical way to meet a basic need – especially through the hard work of our family.

I’m sure there are hundreds of parallels that you could draw between this childhood memory and my life as it is now. To this day, I still think of those activities fondly whenever I smell someone burning wood. I am interested in hearing form others on what memory you think most shaped your life. Maybe I’ll even add this activity (with the aluminum foil!) to our list for summer vacation with my family …