About Me — V. Lynn Connelly
I’m still a work in progress
Hi, Medium. I’m Lynn, and I’m glad to be here, and I so appreciate the warm welcome I’ve received from so many of you!
Identity stuff
I am a first-born, Gen X, lapsed Catholic overachiever who had an average, blue-collar, midwestern American childhood, if there is such a thing.
I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in accountancy. I switched because numbers are orderly and people are not.
Before psychology, I was a physics major because I wanted to be an astronaut. Before that, I wanted to be a spy, but I thought it would be cooler to fly into outer space. Then the space shuttle Challenger exploded, and psychology seemed safer. Little did I know.
I went back to school in my late forties to get the education credits necessary to become a CPA, and many people questioned my wisdom, but it’s the best financial decision I’ve ever made, even with student loans. I have job security and the ability to fund my retirement now, which is no small thing. I’m still not sure an accountant is what I want to be when I grow up, but I’ve passed the point of no return.
I sometimes moonlight tutoring grammar and writing. I can’t tutor math anymore because, ironically, I don’t use it (accounting is like puzzle-solving. Computers do the actual math).
I used to perform and teach belly dancing (the Middle Eastern art form, to distinguish it from pole dancing, which I swear is what many Americans think it is).
I am the kind of relentlessly cheery person some people love to hate.
Yet, I’m clinically depressed and on medication. They call it “high-functioning” depression, but when I can’t remember the last day I showered or saw another human being, I’m not sure how highly I’m functioning.
Miscellaneous stuff
I love history, and I love to travel. I hope to make it to the three continents I have not yet visited (Australia, Africa, and Antarctica) before my body can no longer handle long-distance travel.
I can’t pick my favorite destination because I love something about all of them (I know, that’s a cop-out). But the most fascinating by far was Panmunjom and the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. I need to write about that.
I have loved to read and write since before I can remember. When I was nine, my grandmother took me along for company on a trip to visit her hometown, then complained to my parents that I had my nose in a book or a notebook the whole time (wish I still had that notebook!).
I am cursed with the ability to see all sides of an issue, which makes it hard to settle on one. So, if I have a firm opinion, it means something.
My favorite color is aqua.
I jumped out of an airplane once. It was the scariest, most exhilarating adventure ever, and I would do it again, but I learned not to promise my children anything I wasn’t willing to follow through on because they never forget (ME to my 8-year-old: When you graduate from college, I’ll take you skydiving! MY SON, 14 years later: So when are we going skydiving?).
Related, I have no fear of heights, which is not always a good thing.
I have a completely irrational fear of bridges (specifically of driving over them).
I have been on a diet since I was 14 years old. It’s kind of ridiculous. While I’ve accepted my perennially pudgy body at this point, obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes run in my family, and I would like to stay healthy as I age, but I am a stress eater, and I can gain 15 pounds a month when I’m not paying attention.
I love hummus, but I have a bizarre allergy to chickpeas/garbanzo beans. I will not asphyxiate and die, but I will projectile-vomit uncontrollably, which makes me great fun at gatherings where hummus is hiding in appetizers or veggie wraps.
If only I had this reaction to chocolate and chips, I might not have the weight issue.
Family stuff, and recovery from family stuff
My father died young of ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease). It was a horrible way to go. He was a good man, and I still miss him, and it seems so unfair.
My mother died last year, and nobody much misses her. Maybe after I write more, that won’t sound so cold.
Alcoholism is rampant on both sides of my family, my mother was the emotionally abusive child of two alcoholics, my brothers are both alcoholics who’ve experienced severe consequences, and I married an emotionally abusive alcoholic because repeating patterns is what we do.
Related, Al-Anon saved my sanity and possibly my life and gave me not only serenity but also tools that help me function in all aspects of my life. Before Al-Anon, I didn’t even know what a boundary was. You’ll hear of my experiences and Al-Anon lessons in my writing, but we believe in attraction rather than promotion, so I try not to preach.
Three years after my divorce, I had to obtain a domestic violence protection order to make my former husband stop harassing, stalking, and threatening me. I developed PTSD. The protection order didn’t work, but having him arrested finally did.
The protection order expired a few years ago, but he’s remarried now, so I am thankfully no longer his focus.
I have two wonderful adult children, and I hope I have broken all the cycles.
I never had a dog until my brother landed in a nursing home with alcoholic dementia (I wrote about this recently), and I couldn’t find a home for his lab/mastiff mix, Buddy. All the dog people in my life keep gloating, “See, you ARE a dog person,” as if they knew it all along. I think I’m just a Buddy person, but I’m letting them have the win.
Here is Buddy making sure my butt stays in the chair while I’m writing:
Unbelievable stuff
Perhaps the most interesting thing about me, based on the sheer number of questions I still get from those who know it happened, is not even about me: my best friend of 30 years had a secret long-term emotional affair with a convicted murderer and helped him execute a plot to get out of prison.
It failed, and she was caught, which is the only reason I know about it. To this day, I wonder what would have happened had it worked.
I buried the lede, I know. If you’ve read this far, thanks!
I used to wonder what I had done to the universe to deserve all the insanity I’d gone through. But when my friend was arrested and my reality imploded, all those prior years of therapy and Al-Anon lessons kept me functioning.
Maybe making me cope with my mom and my husband and my brothers was the universe preparing me to withstand the earth-shattering blow to come, because she was my person, the one I trusted more than anyone else in my life. Then suddenly, she wasn’t.
I’m writing a memoir about this although I may never want to publish it. Writing helps me process all the craziness in relative safety.
Concluding stuff
As bad as my experiences were, they are still first-world problems, and so many others have had it so much worse, and I am grateful every day for the resources and support I am privileged to enjoy.
V. Lynn Connelly is a pen name for reasons that may be evident: privacy of the people I write about and safety because of the criminal element. I will change all their names and some identifying characteristics, but anyone who knows me would know exactly who everyone else is, so I’ve changed mine too. Theirs aren’t my stories to tell, and I’ve no desire to hurt them, but I can’t write about what I went through without referencing what they did. I’m not going to ask their permission, so I’m doing my best to conceal their identities (for the record, Veronica and Lynn are my real names, but almost no one in real life calls me either, and Connelly is an old family name).
Thanks for reading and for all the stories you all so generously share!
