she's 31, a london native, and smack dab in the middle of seven kids. middle child syndrome took over hard in her teens, and she started becoming wilder and wilder to get attention. good or bad, attention counted. this eventually morphed into a bit of a hedonistic personality where she ended up confusing pleasure for actual happiness... which continued into her early 20's when her mother fell sick, and she found herself gaining actual fulfillment being there for her - it gave rue a sort of her own peace to be giving her mother peace in her final months. finally with a purpose, she set out to keep doing that for others, which is how she ended up a death doula. essentially, she just sits with the dying and the families of the dying, first helping the one dying to find some final peace, then helping the families with their next steps and eventual healing. it's heavy work, but rue's never really felt the weight of it, just the lightness of helping people during a time it's so hard to be helped. in her personal life, there's still a little bit of that hedonistic streak, especially now that she's faced with death on the daily - life is too short to not find pleasure in it - but for the most part she's significantly more grounded in who she is now and is using pleasure for just that instead of a happiness surrogate. sorry for the ramble, but tell me about aria!