Note from Audra: I love how our community is so interested in these traffic gals. My son referred to them as my traffic friends yesterday even though I’ve personally never even met them! I’m so thankful for the lovely Stephanie Kayhan for spreading their good stories with us!
Here’s the latest from Stephanie:
Meet Caroline. She is the bubbliest, most carefree, happy-go-lucky, easy-going girl I’ve talked to in quite some time. She’s fun, full of laughs and a quick smile and very easy to talk to. She immediately gave me the impression that she is comfortable in her own skin and seemed to be very accepting of her life and circumstances. Part of this is because she is so close to the other girls and their families. I learned that they are in fact, family. Caroline is engaged to Zach, who is Tiffany’s brother. Caroline said, “Oh yeah, we’re a giant family. On the weekends we all get together and have these big picnics. All the kids get together and play, they hang out, we all eat together. We’re pretty much together all the time.” She told me that they live outside of the city so they have huge space outdoors to enjoy and the kids are always riding their 4-wheelers and love being outside, not cooped up indoors. Caroline has 3 kids and many animals. She counted for me: 1 dog, a cat, 2 turtles and 27 fish. Caroline told me that she is happy when her kids are happy. She will make sure that they get everything that they want. She doesn’t ever want them to go without. I asked her if she spoils them. She said with a laugh, “Oh, probably. But I’m happy doing that.”
Caroline is 7 years sober. I asked her if it’s a daily struggle and when she replied matter of factly that it’s a part of her, it is what it is, and she doesn’t let it consume her, I picked up on a strength in her that is quite impressive. She has moved on and tries not to think about it and just leads her life. “That’s all I can do, right?”, she said. As far as her future goes, Caroline’s dream is to own and manage an assisted living facility. This really intrigued me. She said, “I just love old people.” She loves their honesty. Caroline said, “They say whatever is on their mind and we have to listen to them because they have life experience on their side…they can pretty much say anything and get away with it. It’s really neat. I like that.” She is studying business currently and wants to continue so that one day, she’ll have the education to use in her dream job — the assisted living facility. When it comes to down time, Caroline’s guilty pleasure is the TV show Scandal. I asked about her favorite kind of music and she told me that she’s always, “jamming in her head.” She told me that she does that when she’s out directing traffic too. There’s always a tune swirling around in her head. And Caroline’s favorite car? She likes the Teslas that are driving down Mt. Vernon.
You are rich according to what you are, not according to what you have.
