Rebelliously Resilient

Overcoming Boredom, Bedlam and Bad Choices to Live a Life that Matters

Adapted from my upcoming memoir Rebelliously Resilient.

This little girl, born in Dallas, Texas, is #RebelliouslyResilient.

This little girl has never met her father, who was jailed when she was just six months old and spent most of his life in prison.

This little girl testified in judge’s chambers of family court for the first of 4 times when she was 3 and a half, after her sister was found dead in her crib one morning at just 3 months old.

This little girl skipped first grade and started a year early, making her nearly two years younger than anyone in her class.

This little girl wrote her first computer program using a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer – she made rainbow-colored lines dance on-screen to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star – when she was 7.

This little girl was forced, at 8 years old, to tell her mother she didn’t want to see her anymore, to end a 5-year custody battle with her grandmother (the same grandmother who told her if she could read, she could cook and pointed her to the kitchen to fend for herself).

This little girl was homeless and food insecure after her grandmother was sent to jail when she was 9 and her step-grandfather was without a job. She relied on food pantry donations and charitable church members for nearly 2 years to stay housed, fed and clothed.

This little girl read at least 50 books every summer from 5th grade through 9th grade, practically living at the local library (which had air conditioning), joining in the (adult) writer's club and teaching herself to speed-read.

This little girl was bullied all throughout school, because she was younger, smarter, poorer, uglier - she didn’t dress like everyone else, didn’t talk like everyone else, and didn’t have a normal family like everyone else.?She got in a lot of fights standing up for herself – though that wasn’t always how the adults viewed these confrontations.

This little girl experienced her first round of foster care at 12 – and it did not go particularly well.

This young lady, now 13, joined any and every activity at school to avoid a physically and sexually abusive home and to make everything appear well adjusted to CPS so she could avoid another round of foster care.

This young lady altered her ID so she could start working at the local Albertson’s at 14 – because she was tired of an empty fridge at home, the limited options for the free lunch, and so she could afford running shoes for cross country, buy a trumpet and participate in color guard.

This young lady taught herself to play trumpet her sophomore year of high school, winning top honors at solo and ensemble, just to prove, to the boys that said a girl couldn’t, that a girl could. She refused to join the band because she wasn’t really a team player.

This young lady spent the summer she turned 15 living on the streets of Dallas-Fort Worth and somehow escaped far too many harrowing situations. She thought more than once that perhaps her life just did not matter but found anger as a tool to squash the feelings of hopelessness.

This young lady bounced between high schools, foster homes and her grandmother’s apartment.?She skipped six weeks of school her junior year after a boy sexually harassed her on a bus ride home from a football game, because she didn’t want to be seen as “that kind of girl” and didn’t see another way out.

At 16, this young lady said, “screw it,” packed her bags and hopped on a Greyhound bus to Indianapolis (in March without a winter coat).?She altered her ID again, moved into a shelter, got a job doing clerical work, and was scheduled for her GED.?Then she went to church, got recognized (some 900 miles away), was turned in, spent three days in juvenile and chose to go home with her forever and final foster family instead of back to Dallas.

This young woman, now 16, got straight A’s for the first time in her life, with a schedule full of Advanced Placement classes, and graduated (somehow) in the top 10% of her class, with an SAT score of 1540 and a full scholarship offer. But she still felt like a disappointment, not quite achieving what was expected of her.

This young woman, now in college, was president of her forensics (speech and debate) team, made some questionable choices (who doesn’t), was twice assaulted at college parties, but worked her way through to a Chemistry and Mathematics Degree anyway.

This woman got married and had two beautiful children. She opted to continue working, was quite an awful manager when first promoted, but refusing to accept there wasn’t anything she couldn’t learn to do better, found mentors and coaches, and rose quickly through the ranks. But still, she felt like an outlier, an imposter, and a disappointment.

At 24, this woman became her mother’s caretaker after her mother attempted suicide. She shuttled her to doctor’s appointments and filled out paperwork and helped her get a job.?But her mother left one morning without saying goodbye and would pass away just a few years later having never spoken to her again.

This woman did what she had to do to survive a home invasion, protecting her children by complying with the demands of a serial rapist and future murderer high on meth. This young woman was the voice for herself and other victims when the time came, demanding justice and letting everyone know that though he had power in a moment, he would never take her power permanently.

This woman would go on to have two more children, the last while leading teams and projects in a global organization, finishing her MBA and Master’s degrees, and coaching her oldest daughter’s softball team.

This woman transitioned industries and functions with every career move, seeking and taking on real challenges, all the while trying to find her “why.” She learned, through difficult lessons and total failures, that her passion for people came from a deep-rooted need to know that her life would matter to others, that she could make an impact on the people around her.

This woman tried to channel that “why” in HR leadership roles, but never fit the status quo of what HR was expected to be – perhaps because she had too much passion or cared too much about people.

This woman, as a successful executive leading transformational change, was furloughed, with her entire team, during the COVID pandemic.?But once again, she refused to let others write any chapter of her story. With the downsizing and every rejection or no response, she became even more determined to create her own place to thrive and build a team that put people first. So, she bootstrapped her way to a thriving business in under a year, while helping as many people impacted professionally by the pandemic as she could with finding their next.

This little girl, this young lady, this young woman, this woman, this mother, this entrepreneur – is me – not a victim, not a survivor, not a labor statistic nor the subject of some police report – but the creator of her destiny and the author of her story, rebelliously resilient and determined to live a life that matters.

About the Author

Christina Rothenberger is the author of Human, Not Resources and her upcoming memoir, Rebelliously Resilient. She has shared her experiences and supported others through public speaking engagements and personalized coaching sessions. She is the founder and managing director of Tangata, LLC where she strives to help organizations make intentional and people-focused decisions just as she does for her own organization. Her passion for learning and continuous growth is something she transmits to others while using her past struggles, failures, and experiences to fuel her drive.