This was taken in January of 1999, at age 19. Definitely one of the better pictures I've ever had taken.

This is where I really blossomed as an atheist. It was around this time that I first joined the American Atheists. And one month later I founded the Oklahoma Atheists, which I also headed for a time. It was also the birth-time of this very website. In early 1999 I really hit my stride, beginning to fully understand who and what I was for the first time in my life.

My fiancée and I broke up for good a few months after this picture was taken, and this time I didn't need to pick myself up or dust myself off, because I never went down. I was then, and thankfully have remained, my own woman. I love my husband, and I trust him to be there for me whenever I need him. But I know that I am worthwhile even without him, and that my ability to live is not contingent on being loved. Not by any man, and not by any god.