Traci Haskett Update

I didn't graduate from Corinth, which was my choice. Hindsight is 20/20, and it remains to be one of those choices that I wonder if it were the right one. A week into senior year, I moved back to Adamsville, AL, 10 miles NW of Birmingham. I'd wanted to get back down here for so many years, and when my folks finally gave in, it seemed like a dream. I graduated from Minor High School, and attended the University of Alabama Birmingham that fall.

In between my sophomore and junior years I married a guy that I'd met the year before as a friend of a friend. We had Justin in the first year of our marriage. When he was 8 months old I went back to school and in 94 completed what my daddy called the most useless degree he'd ever heard of... a BA in music with a minor in Anthropology...go figure. Conner, my daughter was born in 96, and I started teaching piano in a private school, where I stayed for a little over 6 years.

Things in my marriage were not so hot, and I guess I was one of those cliche's of the woman who kept trying to make things work even though they couldn't. We divorced in 2004, right after my daddy died. The divorce was the best thing that could have ever happened. Justin stayed with his dad, and Con came with me, and they have both wound up being pretty well adjusted kids, all things considered. Steven, my ex, and I have wound up becoming best friends, something that just couldn't have happened had we stayed married. And believe me, having a 15 yr old and a 10 yr old, we have to stay friends or else they'd be playing us against each other every chance they got.

Starting over in my 30's has been interesting to say the least, but definitely not something that I would recommend to anyone. I got back into the job market, in merchandising, and I love it...but I am planning on going back to school this summer to get my masters in music education. Being a single mom has definitely had it's share of ups and downs, but my biggest hope is that I find someone and am not dating when Conner starts to date, I honestly couldn't take it...I'm having a hard enough time with her starting to go through puberty. For all of ya'll with young ones, enjoy every moment of them being little, they get too big too fast, and before you know it you're looking them in the eye, or as in my case with Justin, looking up to them, and you wonder what happened to that sweet little thing that you were holding in your arms just yesterday.

I do hate the fact that my kids don't get to experience the childhood that I had...where it was safe to go out and play in the neighborhood because we knew all of our neighbors....the most damaging weapons brought to school were the tongues of our classmates....and sex ed was something that we went over in the 5th grade when they showed us those grainy films that left the boys leaving the room making fun of the girls. This is the time that I question my moving back here, a place that I'd only known on weekend trips, vs. the place that I grew up in, where I had friends that I truly regret having lost touch with.

Thank you Jake, for remembering that I was there. For that, and this community of friends that you've brought back together after all these years, I'm truly grateful.