Darren had grown up in the small rural town of Pendleton, Oregon whereas Sadie hailed from Vancouver, Washington, just over the border from Portland. The two stayed in Ashland for two years while they completed their teaching credentials, and made the decision to move to Portland to start their careers.
And then they were married, in an intimate ceremony on Agate beach in Newport, Oregon. Before long, the small family of two grew to three, and soon after, four with the addition of their two sons, Peter and Tyler. Darren's mother, who had opted to stop having children after two, warned of how chaotic adding anymore to the household could be, but both he and Sadie wanted a daughter. With Sadie's poor relationship with her own parents, she wanted to build a large family full of love, with four children in mind, and when Darren's father passed after a lengthy battle with cancer that required frequent trips to Bend, it was decided the family would relocate there to be closer to his remaining parent.
It was in 1992 that the daughter they had waited for was born into the world. Chrystiana Josephine Birch had a cry so uncomfortably shrill that Sadie was convinced she had just birthed the Black Canary herself, with a full head of brown hair. From the start, she was every bit like her mother. Even before she could form words, Chrysti would speak nonsense to her family and others, just enjoying the way that the words felt in her mouth. By two, those words had turned to songs, and by four, she was admitted to the Childrens Choir. Her seemingly infinite energy motivated her two full-time working parents to place her in as many after school activities as possible, from gymnastics, to theatre, to gardening. Chrysti's bright wide eyes seemed to absorb every morsel of the world around her, insatiably hungry to know more. This put her in an excellent mindset when it came time for formal schooling.
Chrysti established herself as an excellent student, able to drum up sincere interest about any subject, and find the subtlest nuance to zone in on and find fascination with it. She would grow to give impassioned speeches in debate team, and lead her classes consistently with the highest grade, yet it was an earnest and sincere desire to discover the inner workings of life itself, rather than a competitive urge. She was valedictorian of her class and applied to universities all over the country, but chose to attend UC Berkeley.
Before declaring her major, Chrysti elected to take a course in conservation biology during the latter half of her freshman year, and as a result, chose to study forestry and natural resources. She worked tirelessly in both her personal and the university garden, cultivating everything from fruits to vegetables to flowers and succulents, which she would then sell to make a bit of extra money on the side to help pay her incredibly steep rent. She very much discoverd her love of the outdoors when she embarked on an eight week Forestry seminar in the Sierra Nevadas during her junior year where she made the decision, along with two of her other coresearchers that graduate school was a very sure thing.
Chrysti went on to graduate on time with her degree, in the top five percent of her class, something that held a great deal more weight where UC Berkeley was involved rather than her tiny high school in rural Oregon. However, her entire senior year was plagued with stress. She realized how little she understood about the world, and her naivety painfully apparent even more so when she sought out an internship with a company in her field. As it turned out, as spectacular as she was with the busy work and regurgitation that came with traditional education, she was far less spectacular when it came to the workplace. All of her strengths were not so helpful anymore, and she struggled to prove herself for the first time. While the company did not fire her before her six months was complete, she was passed over for an additional six months which a few other interns did receive. She wasn't accustomed to being passed over, but at the same time, she had genuinely not liked the job. Graduate school seemed like a better and better plan the more she realized how incompetent she could be just thrown into the chaos of being an adult.
Falling back into the comfortable swing of education, she was accepted into her first choice of graduate school: New York University. The choice to attend, and even apply in the first place, had come from a place of fear. Chrysti's move from rural Oregon to the bay area had been stressful enough, but New York City was a beast of it's own. In her mind, this was the place that would help her acquire those street smarts that she so desperately lacked, it would throw her into the world in more or less of a controlled environment, and if it all panned out, she would be just as successful when her academic career came to a close. She's settled into her second semester of her master's program in ecology and evolutionary biology well, and while more jaded with the world than when she began undergrad, is ready to show the world just how tenacious she can be.
► Extremely family oriented. She would like to one day have a large family of her own, but has no plans to address that for years to come.
► Relationships have proven to be almost impossible for Chrysti. This doesn't deter her from jumping into them if it feels right at the time, but it rarely turns out well. She doesn't like using the word promiscuous despite it's validity, however, she won't apologize for loving freely.
► Prone to sudden and ferocious crushes that she swears are as alive as she is with the constant ebb and flow between infatuation and ambivalence.
► "You can take the girl out of Oregon..." She has maintained a great deal of her hippie-dippie artsy-fartsy roots and it shows both in the way that she dresses with her general sense of style, in the way that she eats non-processed mostly organic foods, and her very kickback personality. She's still adjusting to the whole weed not being legal in New York.
► Suffers from what she likes to call "empathy on steroids." She swears her heart is massively too large and can be an intensely emotional person, though mostly when it comes to animals and immediate family. Long story short, she's not a fun person to watch movies with. And don't even think of keeping the TV on when those ASPCA commercials come on. She will destroy you.
► Much to her professional athlete of a brother's chagrin, she doesn't understand sports for the life of her. She's trying to learn and can wing her way through seeming like she knows, but it's all regurgitated statements she's heard from her brother. "Did you see that ludicrous display last night?" anyone?
► Generally a very affectionate person. She loves to snuggle with her friends of any and all genders without ever crossing into romantic entanglements. Physical affection is very common; she'd rather straight up jump on you in a bear hug than express her gratitude verbally.
► Stands at 5'5" and weighs 115 pounds. This comes from her constantly morphing diet that is primarily vegetarian but sometimes lapses into vegan or omnivorous depending on the mood she's in. She absolutely detests people that feel the need to brag and/or shame when it comes to personal dieting preferences. That being said, there's almost nothing she won't devour like it was her first meal in years.
► Lives for Netflix, group rabb.it sessions and watches a lot of television. She's almost entirely made up of sarcasm and quotes from movies and TV shows at this point, and she's not even a little sorry about it.