Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue
Bio
Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue is a Midwest-based author known for her captivating lesbian romance novels, compelling mysteries, and heart-pounding thrillers. To find out more, visit: http://www.nicolehigginbothamhogue.com
Stories (126)
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I'm Still the One
When I think of a good person, I think of my grandma. She was probably one of the best people that I knew and she was the type of person that was not only willing to talk to anyone that she met, but she was willing to listen to them too. My grandma grew up with four sisters, and her mom was the head of the household. Now, realize that her mom was paying all of the bills and taking care of all of the groceries during a time where there weren’t very many women that worked outside of the home. The concept is not only inspiring but motivating. Anyhow, my grandma grew up poor, and the food that was put on her table would come from the tip money that her mom, who worked as a waitress, received from her daily shift. Her mom would go to the store and pick up the groceries for the night and come home. There wasn’t too much of a fuss over what they ate, because they had to eat what was put in front of them. That was just how it was. When my grandma eventually started going to school, she didn’t like it at all. She got bullied, and if I remember right, I think that the only reason that she actually sought out to accomplish the task was for her mother. She met my grandfather at the tail end of her school days. He was in the military at the time, and since they didn’t have a car, he would walk across town to see her every day. The two of them married, and since they didn’t have a lot of money, they lived with my great grandma until they could get on their feet. They got a car, but it caught on fire, so they had to get another one. They eventually got a house, but my grandpa had to work two jobs at one point to afford their bills. This was difficult for him, and since they had almost immediately started to have children, my grandma was left home tending to the house and their kids, not able to help him by working outside of the house. At some point, this changed, probably when the kids got into school and my grandma got a job so she could help with the bills. This helped her, because she was able to make it so my grandpap didn’t have to work so many hours to take care of their necessities. She worked this job for several years, and then, one day, the place that she worked for was robbed. She was there during the robbery. She was there to hear the criminals walking by her and she wasn’t sure if she was going to make it. She was blessed. She did make it through,but she suffered a heart attack right after the incident, and it was at that point that she decided to retire. Now, this woman had been through all kinds of things. She grew up poor. She had her car catch on fire. She had to live with her mom so she could get on her feet. She had to watch her husband exhaust himself working two jobs just to keep their house afloat, and she got robbed. Ironically, she was the reason that a lot of people in my family didn’t have to go through these types of situations. She made sure that the people around her were taken care of, and despite all of her experiences, she never wished them on others. In fact, I grew up not even knowing all of the things that my grandma had to experience. I just thought about her as my grandma. She was the person that brought me to the movie theatre and hid snacks in her purse. She was the one that would take me for the weekend and let me pick out a movie at the local video store. She took me to the zoo, and she even went with me and my mom when we went to see Sesame Street live and the Ninja Turtles. When I was young, I hardly heard my grandma complain about anything. I didn’t even really hear her cuss. She taught me how important it was to be nice to other people regardless of their lifestyle. She also showed me how to give back to the community. In fact, my grandparents took me to one of the first charity events that I ever went to. Her entire life revolved around her faith, her family and taking care of others. When she went to the grocery store, she would greet the people that she ran into. She learned the names of the people that worked at those stores and she listened to stories about their lives and gave them advice. During the holidays, she would even give the associates that helped her out in these places gift cards so they had a little something for themselves or for their families. She was also big on giving things away to the homeless shelters in the community. She would make blankets with my grandpa that she gave to the men’s shelter in the winter. She would buy small crafts for children that she gave to shelters that housed women and their kids. She would buy baby clothes for the drive that her church had to help new mothers that might not have the resources to pay for those items, and she would volunteer at her local church to help with the business affairs that they had to tend to. Though my grandmother helped a lot in her community, she didn’t forget about her family. She always bought presents for everyone’s birthday. She would do her best to search throughout the year for the things that each person liked and personalize their presents. When someone in her family needed a job, she hired them to do gutters or mow the lawn, and if there was someone that needed something simple like their car fixed or shoes, she would give them the money to get the items required. My grandma never had anything easy, but she was thankful for everything that she had. Sometimes, people were mean to her, and there were plenty of times where she experienced pain or hardship, but she never let that affect who she was. Up to the day that she died, she was thinking of those around her. She did her best to be a good person, and she lived her life in faith, bound and determined to be kind to the people around her and give what she could to make everyone else’s life a little bit easier. She really cared about others, sometimes more than herself. So, in retrospect, it is possible to maintain your morals and the person that you are even when going through a difficult period of your life. It might be difficult to do this, and the experiences that you have might take a little time to recover from. However, maintaining your personality, beliefs, and goals might suit you better in the long run, and it might even touch the life of someone close to you.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Confessions
Open Wins Over Stubborn Shuns
I waited a couple of years after I came out to start dating women. First of all, when I was younger, there was only one woman that I was kind of interested in and she didn’t like me the same way. Second of all, there wasn’t a large amount of LGBTQI people in my area, so I really didn’t know too much about dating women. I also didn’t know what I was interested in. See, I knew the traits that I wanted in the person that I was dating, or at least I thought that I did, but I didn’t know where to meet them or how to start a good conversation with them or even how to progress these interactions into a relationship. I had absolutely no experience in this area, and most of the people that I was around were straight. So, I felt absolutely alone. Then, when my family moved to a larger city and I started working at a hotel, I began to meet more women that caught my eye. I started to make friends and I found a community of LGBTQI people, which opened my eyes to a world that I had never known. When I had first come out, I was told that I was going through a phase. I was told that being gay was against my religion. I was also misunderstood a lot. For instance, one of my teachers had an open discussion in her class where the students could ask each other questions, and I was asked who I was attracted to in that class. I felt like an outcast, and the way that people reacted to me coming out was to do everything that they could to put me back in the closet. There wasn’t a lot of education back then on LGBTQI people. They didn’t have any laws protecting people that identified with that group, and they weren’t really worried about hurting other peoples’ feelings. People just did or said what they wanted to, and if you weren’t the same as them, then a lot of the time you were outcasted. There were more incidences of hate crimes, deaths, and suicides pertaining to the LGBTQI community too, and there really weren’t any known resources that were widely available to the general public. The Internet wasn’t as big of a thing. In fact, the first Internet that we had in our house cut off the phone line and made a lot of noise when you logged into it. Anyhow, when I came out, I didn’t know what I was looking for or what would make me happy. I had hung out with a lot of men growing up, so I considered myself more masculine, but I didn’t really identify as butch. Therefore, the first few women that I dated were ones that considered themselves more feminine than I was and they were the ones to make the first move. It was easier that way, if I let them call the shots, then I knew they would be happy, and I would be happy for the companionship. At first, dating like this worked for me. I got to experience taking a woman out to dinner for the first time. I was able to have long conversations in the park, and it was nice to have the company of another person after a long day at work. However, after a while, I knew that I needed more. I just didn’t know what. I was tired of dating women that expected me to pick up the tab all of the time. I felt like I had to be more concerned with what was going on in their lives without them giving me the same consideration, and I also thought that in order to have a girlfriend, these were things that I had to deal with. I had to deal with constant chaos, fighting, cheating, and there were even a couple that treated me poorly when they were around their friends. I dated a few that needed or wanted me to pay the bill when we went out, and sometimes, this would break the budget that I had set for myself for the week. There were even times when a girl that I was dating wouldn’t talk to me again until I got paid. I had never been with a real partner, a person that was willing to pull half the weight, was equally concerned about my wellbeing, and truly wanted to experience life with me. Most of the women that I was dating didn’t really show a huge amount of interest in my life. They were more concerned about their own. They had a picture in their head of what I should be, and for a lot of them it was a stereotype of what a butch woman should do for her partner. The thing was, I wasn’t butch. I wasn’t femme. I wasn’t anything but me, and for a lot of the people that I went out with, this was confusing. I lost some of my respect for relationships around that time. I was tired of having to deal with people that were more concerned about themselves than about me. I was annoyed that there wasn’t give and take in our conversations, and I had a couple people that I had gone out with that were dishonest and unfaithful. So, after talking to one of my friends, I decided to put the idea of being in a relationship on the backburner. I didn’t want to spend my life unhappy and I knew that if I continued dating the same people, I was never going to get very far. So, I stopped looking. I stopped dating, and I just concentrated on myself and hanging out with my friends. I also talked more to a woman that I had become friends with at work. Now, this woman wasn’t always someone that I had gotten along with. She was a manager, and she replaced the job of my original manager, so when I had first met her, I told her right away that I didn’t like her and I didn’t want anything to do with her. Ironically, I worked a lot, and as time went by, I had gotten to know her better. We had similar experiences growing up. We had people in our families that were alike. We even thought alike when it came to our interpretations of the world and other people. It was uncanny. The more we got to know each other, the more I wanted to be around her. I liked her company. I liked to see her happy, and she genuinely cared for me and the things that were occurring in my life. It was an unlikely friendship, and the more time that we spent with each other, the more we relied on each other. Then, one day, I went out with one of my college friends. We hung out, talked, and the woman at work came up in our conversation. At the end of the conversation, my friend smiled and told me that I needed to tell my friend at work how I felt. She explained that the way that I was talking about her made it seem like I was in love with her, and if I didn’t tell the other woman how I felt, I might risk never knowing if a relationship between the two of us could work out. Of course, I shook my head and told my friend that I wasn’t going to do it. I was too worried about there being someone else or the woman at my work turning me down. I didn’t even feel like I was in the same league as the woman that I worked with. She was so nice and caring, and she really did want the best for everyone. There was no way that a woman like that would want to be in a relationship with me. However, my college friend insisted that I talk to the woman at my work and tell her how I felt even after I told her that I couldn’t do it, and those words swirled around my head for the next few days, making me wonder if I should have that conversation. After a few days, I went to work and the woman that I had grown close to at work told me that she needed to talk to me. I agreed to conversate in private, and the two of us went to the back of the building. As I looked at this woman, the woman that I had slowly become friends with, the woman that had won my heart, I wondered why she looked so nervous. I could tell by the expression on her face that something was up, and I knew that if she had a look like that then it probably wasn’t the best time to tell her that I had feelings for her. She began to talk, and then, she would stop. The anticipation of what she had to tell me was making me anxious, so anxious that I started guessing what she was going to tell me, because waiting for her to tell me was too difficult to handle. After a few bad guesses, she finally told me what she had to say. She was in love with me, and she wanted to pursue a relationship. I was astounded. I didn’t know what to say. Of course, I wanted to date her. She was unlike any woman that I had ever known. She didn’t judge me. She didn’t have a preconceived notion of how I should act. She just treated me like a person. She cared about me. She talked to me about my feelings and the things that I wanted out of life, and I did the same for her. We ended up dating, and that evolved into marriage and kids and several other experiences down the road, and I realized that in the romance department, this was the woman that I needed to be with. She made me a better person. My faith was stronger with her by my side, and I had the freedom to be myself without being told what I should do or how I should act. I didn’t know what I needed so it came to me when I least expected it, and I didn’t have to settle for something that made my life harder.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Confessions
Old Dogs and New Tricks
When I grew up, there was a big push to educate yourself before you were old enough to live outside of the home. This created the misconception for some that after you were on your own, you knew what you knew and lost the opportunity to learn more. Though I did well in school, there were still several things that I didn’t know how to do. One of those things was how to cook a real meal. You see, I grew up in a household with a vegetarian and a younger child that wouldn’t eat certain foods. So, the dishes that won the hearts of the children in the house were cheese sandwiches, cheese pizza, cheese roll-ups, and butter noodles. Then, when we did make a bigger meal, at least during the week, it was usually hamburger helper. This left me with few cooking skills, because when I made food for my siblings, there wasn’t much of a selection of things that I could make. Eventually, I ended up living on my own, and I expanded the items on my menu to chicken that I would fry in oil and anything that I could buy in a packet and add water or milk too. Even when I made dinner for my friends or women that I was dating, I usually cooked the same meal, give or take switching up the packaged pasta. To say the least, I didn’t really cook that much. I relied heavily on drive-thrus or food that I could buy from my work, and I didn’t have a good diet or the knowledge to know how to cook at home to save money. When my wife and I first got together, I showed her my special chicken dish, and she really liked the chicken. However, after a while, I found out that she knew how to make several dishes that I didn’t and was used to eating a completely different diet than I was. She would make casseroles and tacos. She would even fancy up a couple of burgers and make pasta dishes that I had never made in my entire life. I never had to worry about food, because I knew that she would cook it, but when I began my journey as a stay at home mom and writer, that changed. My wife was working a horrendous amount of hours at that time, and it just didn’t seem fair to have her working all of those hours to come home and have to cook her own dinner. My grandma always had dinner on the table for my grandpa. She was an excellent cook, and I knew that none of her children had to worry about eating when they were younger, so I sought out to do the same for my family. I wanted to learn to cook so I could feed my wife and children. I just needed to figure out how I was going to do that. That’s when it dawned on me. I remembered watching a food channel a few years back with a woman that I had been dating at the time, and I thought that if I could just watch that channel, I might learn a thing or two about how to make a meal. I started to do this, bound and determined to learn new skills that would help me around the house. I even found a couple of shows that my spouse and I could watch together. It worked. I ended up getting a ton of information from watching these shows, and I even began asking my grandma for recipes and looking up new dishes online. I would experiment with new dishes that I liked such as chicken and cheese jalapeno corn chowder and bacon fried potatoes and cheese. My wife loved the new array of food choices, and she usually had something to put in her belly after she got off of her long shifts at work. Throughout the years, my cooking has gotten better, and I have taken a real interest in learning how to make dishes that we have enjoyed in restaurants and so on. I even make a lot of the food that we take with us when we go to grill outs or have people over for the holidays. However, without the knowledge that I could still learn this new skill, I wouldn’t be able to do what I can now. So, I am thankful that I was able to push forward in learning this new skill and for the inspiration that I got from my wife and my grandma.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Motivation
Forward Advance
When I was younger, I had nothing to do but read, write, and learn new things. Like I said before, my parents worked a lot so we were home for several hours by ourselves each day, and after doing all of the chores on our chore list, we would pretty much have to come up with something to occupy our minds. We didn’t have cable, and I don’t even know if the Internet existed at that point. If it did, it didn’t in our house, so when we weren’t sledding down the stairs on our flying discs, we were each doing our own thing. One of the things that I liked to do was learn. I figured that if I could learn as much as I could, I would be able to create a more adventurous life and explore different opportunities that I didn’t have available to me at that time. So, I did my best to participate in as many reading competitions as I could. I read the encyclopedia often, and I even stayed up as late as I could get by with to finish my school work early. The only problem was that I was bored. Eventually, I had studied so much that the things that I was learning weren’t occupying my attention. This led me to searching for a way to gain new knowledge, and I found out about a class given by the local community college. I did the paperwork and testing necessary to get into this class, and I passed with flying colors, but there was only one class. This left me wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my high school career. I couldn’t just sit around and listen to the same stuff over and over again. I needed something to engage my mind, so one day, I began to read the state code. I don’t know exactly what drew me to this book or where I got the idea to read it, but after looking up different laws and regulations in my state, I found out that the school had the responsibility to pay for my college education while I attended high school as long as I had passed the college entrance exam. This discovery opened new doors for me, and I felt blessed that I had found it. I was able to take this information to the talented and gifted teacher, and she was able to set up a meeting with the school board so we could get the school to offer more college classes to those that were in high school. After the approval, a consortium of colleges were available to students that wanted to further their education while they were working on their diploma. I loved having this new opportunity, and I knew that down the road, it would save me money. I worked on both my high school and college classes at the same time, and by the time that I graduated high school, I only had two semesters of college left until I was able to get my associate’s degree in general studies. Having this education under my belt helped me take the next step into my education. It also allowed me to enlist in the military with a higher rank. Though both of these things were great, the coolest thing about my school offering these new classes was that future generations would have them available to them when they needed them. There would no longer be a learning deficit, leaving those at the top of the class with nothing else to do, and for students that would not normally be able to afford college, there was now an opportunity for them to go without paying a dime.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Confessions
Rejection Ejection
I have been rejected a number of times in my life, and though it still burns sometimes, if I hadn’t been rejected, I probably wouldn’t be where I am now. For instance, I remember when I was a teenager. We had finally gotten our first computer, and I was allowed to write on it. Now, I had taken several typing classes so I knew how to use the writing applications on the computer, and writing on a device like this was way better than using the typewriter that I used to have. Every time I made a mistake on that, I would have to go back and retype it. You could only cover it up if you had some kind of white out. So, using the computer, I started to write a story. I worked hard on this story, hoping to create a book that others wanted to read and generally enjoying seeing how the story turned out as I wrote it. I never really know how my stories will end. After a lot of work, I finished my book and made it look as good as I could during that time, hoping that it looked nice enough for a publishing company to accept it and turn it into a book. E-books weren’t a thing back then, and the paperbooks available in my town were limited. There wasn’t an online ordering service that shipped them to your home, at least not one that I knew existed. Therefore, the way that you published a book was to find the publishers in a writer’s guide and send off a cover letter and the copy of the book so they could judge whether or not it fit their criteria. I did this several times. I sent my book to every notable company that I knew of that might accept it, and weeks later, I received quite a few letters, letting me know that my story wasn’t their cup of tea. I felt deflated. I had spent so many hours coming up with my story and doing my best to learn the latest formatting techniques. I had researched the companies that I had sent my book to, and I had even gotten a hold of manila envelopes to send my script off. However, the only response that came back was a series of rejections. I was left without a publisher and with a completed manuscript that no one would ever read. I continued to write and while I did that, I made a copy of my existing work, putting it in binders with protective sheet covers so my friends could read it at their convenience. I figured that if I did that, the book wouldn’t get lost, and this would give someone a chance to read it, even if it wasn’t a very big audience. My friends read through my work while I tried to figure out the publishing business, and to be honest years flew by before I did. By the time I figured out that self-publishing was an option, I had already received so many rejection letters, even a few from one of my favorite publishers, that I needed a binder to hold them all. My dad had told me to keep them. He told me that a lot of people got rejected at first, and I suppose he thought they might be more meaningful down the road. To my surprise, he was right. These letters were more meaningful, because when I stepped foot into the publishing world, I knew that despite all of the barriers, I had finally made it. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have never been an author that has been talked about on television or one that has such a large marketing campaign that you would see my work at every store. However, even though I haven’t hit that mark yet, doesn’t mean that I haven’t been successful. Success is measured in what you want to get out of the task you are doing, and I wanted my work to be seen and to make an income off of it. That slowly started to happen, and though I wasn’t making a million dollars or having one of my books signed to an up and coming movie, I felt good. I was able to do what I loved and support my family doing it. This experience taught me to keep trying. Even though my work wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, that didn't mean that there wasn’t a little place in the world for it, and I found that there were some readers that actually liked it so much that they waited for my next release. This felt good, because I had worked so hard to make my passion work for me, and the blessings that I experienced after finally making it were worth the wait.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Unbalanced
Hug an Enemy
After we moved to a new town, my parents had to network with different people to find childcare for us. Prior to that, I had gone to a daycare right by our house as had my sister, but the town that we moved into was forty-five minutes away from that facility, making it too difficult to stay with the same babysitter. This proved to be a difficult task for my parents. Not only were we in school but they also had to worry about making sure they could find someone that could take care of our little brother. Not every babysitter was up for watching three kids, so they went on the hunt for one that was. Ironically for me, the babysitters that they chose were usually two years older than I was. This proved to be both an interesting and somewhat unflattering choice, because I knew that I would end up going to school with the same people that were in charge of caring for me. They went through five different babysitters, but one of those babysitters ended up making a bigger impact on my life than the others. This babysitter only came to watch us once. She was just like the others, two years older than me, and though we got along while she was at my house, years later, she would become my school bully. Now, I don’t exactly blame her for thinking that it was odd that she had to watch a kid that was almost the same age as she was. I thought this was weird too, but I assume there was some kind of law regarding how old you had to be to stay home alone at the time. Eventually, I got to the age that I needed to be at to watch myself and my siblings. I finished elementary school and middle school, and I ended up in high school. I was excited to be a high schooler. That meant that I only had a few more years until I was on my own. I was looking forward to meeting new friends, and I was curious about what classes and activities would be available to me now that I was a little bit older. Nevertheless, I would have never guessed that I would be in the same class as the girl that had babysat me, but to my surprise I was. One day, I walked into my history class only to find the girl that had babysat me, sitting on a back counter with a couple of kids that were in my grade. I didn’t think much of it at first. Sometimes, people had to take different classes, depending on their graduation requirements, and I had gotten along with her back then, so I let her be. Ironically, she didn’t feel the same way as I did. Instead of leaving me along and tending to her studies, she did anything and everything that she could to start a fight with me in front of the class. I was upset about this behavior as I felt that we were old enough to do the things that were required of us in class without this extra bit of chaos, but she wouldn’t stop. She would tease me in the halls. She would call me out in class, and finally, I had enough and decided to call her on her actions. She didn’t back down. It became a back and forth routine between the two of us. She would do something mean to me, I would leave glue under the handle of her locker. She would talk to my classmates about me, I would tell everyone the new nickname I came up with for her. It didn’t stop until she graduated. Fast forward fifteen years later and that girl hadn’t crossed my path or my mind for a while. Then, a news story comes up regarding her family business and a devastating loss. As upset as I was for how she had treated me in high school, I still felt bad for her and her family. They had lost a business that had been passed down through generations of their family, and I really wanted to help. I wrote an article, doing my best to spread the news about the loss and getting the information in front of the eyes of people that didn’t necessarily watch the news. I’m not sure how many people saw my article and were able to help her family, but I did realize that by doing this, I was able to help myself. No longer was I held captive by the memories of my childhood bully. Things had evolved, and I realized that even bullies deserve compassion from time to time.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Writers
No Control But Self-Control
Like most children, when I was little, I believed in the tooth fairy and Santa Clause. I also believed that the characters on Sesame Street were real and that I was going to be a Ninja Turtle when I grew up. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with their friends and eat pizza and practice karate? Anyhow, I had this big idea of what my future would be like, and I knew that one of the first steps in getting there was to meet the Ninja Turtles. So, one eventful evening, mom and my grandma took me to Ninja Turtles live. I was able to see the Ninja Turtles with my own eyes and after we got done with the show, I was full of excitement and energy. We got into the car and were driving back from the show when my grandma asked me if I knew that the Ninja Turtles weren’t real. I was in shock. How could she say such a thing? Maybe, she just didn’t know the truth. I believe I argued for a bit before finally conceding, and then, my grandma broke the news to me that Sesame Street wasn’t real either. I was devastated. My entire life’s plans went up in smoke. What was a kid to do? I mulled over this new revelation, feeling the sadness of knowing that my favorite characters were fake and that I would never have the chance to meet them. Soon the holidays approached and like I was on most weekends, I was at my grandma’s house. Now, at that time, I am pretty sure I had forgiven my grandma for telling me the truth about the Ninja Turtles and Sesame Street. She was a very honest person, and I was sure that she just wanted me to know the truth. So, I did what I normally did while I was at my grandma’s house. I watched television and drew pictures. I even hunted under the couch cushions for money that my uncles left behind. That’s when I saw it. There was a present from Santa sitting in between the couch and the coffee table. I was astounded. How did it get there? Santa wasn’t supposed to arrive for a few weeks. Maybe, it was from last year, but if it was, why hadn’t anyone opened it? Questions flooded my curiosity, and I decided to ask my grandma. I don’t remember my exact wording when I told her about this present, but I think I went up and told her that I knew Santa wasn’t real. Now, I’m sure that when I did this, I wasn’t ready for her response. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I expected quite the opposite, but my grandma’s response was loud and clear when she confirmed my suspicions. So at this point, I had found out that Santa wasn’t real. The Ninja Turtles weren’t real, and Sesame Street wasn’t real. It didn’t take me that long to learn the truth about the Easter bunny and the Tooth Fairy. I was devastated. I no longer had the expectation of meeting any of these fairy tale characters, and it almost felt as if some of the excitement of childhood had been taken from me. Years later, I was talking to my little sister, who was still fairly young at that point, and she was telling me how people in her class were telling her that Santa wasn’t real. I was angry. How could these kids take away my sister’s experience of believing in Santa? She was way too young to learn the truth, and I was determined to do something about it. I told my sister that the kids in her class weren’t telling her the truth, but she didn’t believe me. She still had her doubts, and my sister was smart, so I knew that I would have to do something to prove to her that Santa was real. That’s when the idea came to me to write letters to her from the elves. How could she deny Santa if there were elves at home leaving her letters? I started writing different letters to her. I used a new style of handwriting, so she didn’t recognize the fact that I was really the one that had written these letters, and I left them all over the house for her. Her excitement came back, and she suddenly believed in Santa again. I did this year after year until she was about eight or nine and old enough to understand the truth about Santa. My sister loved this process. She would get excited about the letters. She would search for them, and the joy of waiting for Santa finally came back. I loved this too, because I knew how hard it was to find out that Santa wasn’t real at such a young age while other people my age scrambled around in excitement, and I was glad that I had the opportunity to preserve this childhood milestone for her.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Humans
Try and Try Again
I was always geared to be the best at everything that I did. If I didn’t have the skills, then I would do the best to learn how to get them, and if I wasn’t great at something right away, then I would try to learn how to be better. However, there were a few cases where I was upset when someone else did better than I did. I remember being in grade school and having the instruction from the teacher to write my own book. Every kid was to write their book and then, we were all supposed to illustrate it, so she could staple it together and we could bring it home to our families. I worked hard on this, and I had a lot of practice at drawing and coloring, so I was sure that I was going to do pretty well with this task. I took my time and got my book together, and then when it was finished, I showed the teacher. The teacher liked my book, but she also liked the book that the girl across the table had created. I looked over at the other girl’s work, and I was astounded by how good it was. The pictures were nearly perfect. It was as if a professional had come in and illustrated it for her. Her story made sense. It was indeed a very good book, and I was ashamed by my own work, knowing that there was no way my book could compare to hers. I hung my head, trying to figure out where I went wrong with this project and sulked in my own self-pity. Then, when I was a little bit older, I found myself in competition with two other students for the title of valedictorian. I studied night and day. I found a study group that could help me with my math, and I did my best to answer every midterm and final to the best of my ability. The race was tight, and up until the last two years of high school, I had the title in the palm of my hand. However, now that there were two other competitors, I knew that I had to do better. There was one last exam. It was an English exam, and though I did well in this class, I knew that I wasn’t perfect. I also knew that if I didn’t do better than the other two students, I was going to lose the chance at representing my class as the valedictorian. This was a sad realization as the only thing people had identified me in high school with was my intelligence. I wasn’t the fastest person or the best looking person. I wasn’t even the most charismatic person. I was the smart kid, so if I didn’t get this title, it was as if my entire identity would be lost. We all took our English tests and the results came back. The teacher marked my grade one grade lower than one of the girls I was competing with. Then, I found out that the boy that was also competing got a better grade too. I was now in third place for the title, and I knew that there was no chance that I would be able to represent my class at this point. I was just an average joe with good grades. This upset me significantly. Then, when I was in the military, I applied to be a squadron leader. I wanted so badly to be in a leadership role. I thought that it would better me as a person and help me obtain the skills that I needed to advance later in my career. Unfortunately, this role was given to another woman, and she became a favorite of our training instructor. I remained a regular member of our troop without any exciting title or accolades. All three of these situations were upsetting, but as I grew up and experienced different things in my life, I realized something. These people did better at these things because they needed to. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be on the same life journey that I am now, and they probably wouldn’t be where they are now. Success isn’t something given to one person. It is something that everyone needs to experience every once in a while. It helps give people the confidence to move forward in their paths and sometimes it shows them where their skills are necessary. If I had been the best writer when I was a little kid or the valedictorian when I was in high school, I might not be the person that I am today, and I am happy with that person. You’re not always going to be the best at everything. If you were, then no one else would get a chance to be good at it too, and how boring would a world be where just one person won? I’m sure it would be pretty boring. So, what I learned from this is that it is okay when someone else does better than you. They say that everyone has their fifteen minutes of fame. Maybe, that is theirs, and if it is, it is okay to be happy for them. You never know what was going on in their life before that win, and by doing well in that one area, they might be inspired to do well with the rest of their life too.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Motivation
Who's the Clown?
Once I got past my shy phase, I found that I was quite a talker. This opened me up to meeting people that I wouldn’t have had I not found my voice and when it came to competition, I became more motivated to show how good I could do with whatever challenge was given to me. I started showing off, letting others know the skills that I possessed, hoping that this would give them a better perspective of my personality and hoping to make friends. Nevertheless, I found out quickly that this wasn’t the best way to do this. One of the first times that I remember doing this was in first grade. The teacher thought that I was good at creating stories and offered to let me put on a play for the students next door. I got my little team of people together and we came up with a play, assigning each person to his or her role. We practiced, and when we thought that we were ready, we walked to the other class to put on our performance. However, when we got there, everything fell apart. At first, our play was flowing naturally. Everyone was doing the best job that they could with their roles, and people seemed to be having fun. However, when the initial excitement died down, I decided to hype things up by deviating from the script. Everyone was scrambling to figure out how to do their part. At some point, shoes were thrown, and the teacher in that class kicked us out without us having the chance to finish our play. I was sad and embarrassed, and I knew that if I hadn’t tried to show off, I might have gotten a standing ovation. Then, when I was in second or third grade, I tried out for the basketball team. I got in, and it was cool, because I was one of two girls. I was bound and determined to do my best. I had found that usually when I was around all boys and I was playing any kind of sport, people favored the boys over the girls, so I wanted to show everyone that I was just as good as they were. I worked hard and practice ended, leaving all of the kids there to hang out and wait for their parents. That’s when I saw one of the boys playing on the monkey bars in the gym. I was used to having to prove myself, and I didn’t see the point in not making a new friend, so I walked over there and began to play with him. We competed, trying to see who could go across more bars, when I slipped and crashed to the gym floor, breaking open my chin. I don’t remember much about what happened next. I know my mom came, and I know that I had to go to the hospital and get stitches. However, everything happened so fast that keeping track of each and every detail is hard. What I do remember is that after that, I wasn’t allowed to play any sports during recess and I couldn’t go back to my basketball team. If I hadn’t tried to show off, I might not have been in the same position. Then, when I was a teenager, I was riding my bike and saw a couple of boys that I knew from school. One of the boys was someone that I used to hang out with, and I thought that I would get their attention by trying to ride my bike without holding on to the handle bars. This was all good and great until I fell off the bike and into a curb, breaking open my lip and injuring my wrist. The scar on my lip became a permanent fixture, and my wrist still hurts every once in a while, and I know that if I hadn’t tried to show off for them, I might not have had that unfortunate accident. I learned that it is okay to be thankful and happy for your achievements, but you have to be careful about showing off. Sometimes, when you are trying to get someone’s attention in that way, it goes south, and there are times when that happens where you end up with permanent scars from your experiences.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogueabout a year ago in Confessions
Dating Debacles
Dating and Inattentiveness Why aren’t you present? You might have been with someone for a while and though the two of you may love and care about each other, there might one issue. You might have an issue that your partner doesn’t listen to you. So, what do you do if your partner doesn’t listen to you? How do you approach this type of situation? Though the answers to these questions may be different for everyone, here are a few suggestions.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue3 years ago in Confessions
Business Bustle
Adding an Extra Hand If you own your own business and you have expanded your consumer base in the last year or so, you may be wondering if there is a way to be more efficient in producing your product while addressing the consumer needs. This may have brought you to question if you need an extra hand to help with the business and if it is time to expand your workforce. So, what benefits would bringing a helping hand into the business give you? How could this move help? Though the answers to these questions might be different for everyone, here are a few suggestions.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue4 years ago in Journal
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Avoiding Burnout There are some days where it seems like the work never ends, and if you have a lot of these days then you might be feeling a little burnt out. But how do you avoid feeling this way while still accomplishing your goals? Is there anything that you can do? Though the answers to these questions might be different for everyone, here are a few suggestions.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue4 years ago in Journal
