Hi, and welcome to my blog! Thanks to twitter I have decided to blog about my life instead of strictly about lash and beauty. So I have decided to call my blog "Lashes & Love". I want to talk about both my love of health and beauty and living in love. First, the intro ah hem.... My name is Jessica and I am a nurse practitioner as well as a new lash artist and business owner. I come from a very large family of 9 and I am both the middle child and oldest girl (talk about pressure)
. I was born in New Orleans but raised primarily in the south. I have lived in Maryland, Florida, Louisiana and Alabama. I'm not from a military family but we sure moved like we were. My family moved back to Louisiana after my grandmother had a stroke.
Moving from Orlando, Fl back to New Orleans, LA was a huge culture shock for me and my other siblings. It was hard to adjust at first being the new kid in the middle of the year and leaving behind all the friends you have known. I was NOT the popular kid and got picked on daily for the way I dressed,spoke ,or the color of my skin. Something about being fair skinned black was like a target. I had never experienced racism or negativity in my diverse Florida elementary or middle school and certainly not from people I considered to be like me.
My grades suffered a lot during that time ,not because I could not do the work, I was actually placed in advanced classes. I just did not feel like trying. I did not want to live in Louisiana and doing bad in school was my protest. When I eventually realized that we were not moving back to Orlando I got my act together. I completed jr. high and high school in Louisiana and then promptly decided that I was NOT going to college in Louisiana. I had a full ride to any public college in Louisiana but I was determined to get the heck out of Louisiana. I told my dad that if I had to go to a college in Louisiana that I was not going to college (lil rebel). I did not apply to one single university in Louisiana. I applied to the University of Central Florida (back in Orlando) and The University of South Alabama in Mobile. In the end I decided to move to Mobile, Al as it was a middle ground and close to my grandmother who would later pass my first semester in college.
College was different than I thought it would be and if I could do things differently I would. I think if I could go back I would have gone to a college in Louisiana and saved myself a LOT of student loan debt. I would have been a premed major and NOT a nursing major and I would have liked to have gone to an HBCU and pledged a sorority. Seems like a lot to change but hindsight is 20/20. Not everything went bad but to see what happens next stay tuned....
(next chapter-College daze)