Camp

What was supposed to be an exciting and relaxing weekend for my mother and I turned entirely chaotic on Friday. After a couple college visits in Chicago, we were scheduled to calmly arrive in St. Louis on Friday evening. Things went awry when a man set fire to the radar control center for Chicago airports. Our flight was cancelled. Rescheduled. Cancelled again. Just a few hours before my mom was supposed to be speaking for a couple hundred people in St. Louis. And a couple more hours before I was supposed to be speaking for the entire UBPN (United Brachial Plexus Network) camp. After racing into a too-expensive, smoke-smelling rental car and throwing ourselves in the direction of our destination, we realized we would be too late. Mom missed her speaking gig by a half hour but somehow we arrived at the camp 20 minutes before I was on. My stomach was quietly wishing it was the other way around. How was I supposed to inspire this room full of dozens of strangers? The familiar bend in their elbows and tendency to favor one side was terrifying. Like looking in the mirror to find a stranger. Or a giant room full of them. I hadn't talked to someone else with BPI in years and yet here I was in front of a room full of them tasked with the job to tell them something they hadn't heard before. Tell them something that would change their lives. I had so much to say but suddenly so much of it seemed so arbitrary. Nothing was enough. Like always, words simply weren't enough. But that's all I had. So I spoke. And even though we stayed for less than 24 hours, I'm sure I learned more from the kids, teenagers, and adults than they learned from me in my 30-minute "speech." I was sent to inspire but I was inspired. By the kids playing volleyball by catching. By the adults who hadn't gotten it at birth and had only recently begun their journeys to relearn how to live. By the babies smiling and playing without a worry. And by the teenage girls dealing with being the butt of the joke in high school. I learned from the little stories of compensation and the big stories of overcoming. I had been so focused on what I would say to these people that I hadn't given myself time to think about what I would get out of the weekend. It wouldn't matter because they gave me more than I could've imagined.  

Birthdays

A birthday is a funny thing to celebrate. Yay you exist! Yay you made it another year! Shouldn't we celebrate our mothers on our birthdays? They're the ones who did all the work however many years ago. They went through all that pain so you could live so shouldn't we congratulate them each year? That makes more sense to me...

Additionally, a birthday for me or for anyone with a birth injury seems like a strange thing to celebrate. Yay 17 years ago today was when the doctor messed up so your life could be just a little more difficult! But like always, there's a bright side to celebrating this anniversary. We don't only celebrate things to remember what happened on that day many years ago. It's also to recognize the time that has passed between that day and today. A one-year wedding anniversary is different than a 50-year one. A birthday when you're two is different than when you're 75. So I'm not choosing to see my birthday as a reminder of a day when things went wrong. I choose to see it as a day that recognizes all the years I have overcome my brachial plexus injury. All the years in which I have learned to live with it and explain it and move past it. As of yesterday, I have 17 years of this behind me. And that was the hard part. It can only get better from here right?

Role Models

What would we be without people to look up to? Nearly everything we are is a culmination of all that we have learned from others. Role models come in all different shapes and sizes. They can be parents or celebrities or teachers or strangers or friends or siblings or neighbors or cousins or coaches or characters or grandparents or anything in between. I think the best role models are the ones we don't even realize are influencing us. The ones we find ourselves acting like months later and we're so happy we could become even just that little bit like them.

Of course, throughout our lives we face a lot of bad teachers and coaches and strangers and friends as well. But they're what make the good ones stand out. They're the ones who help us choose who to learn from. I've had a lot of horrible soccer coaches and math teachers and even friends. I've met a lot of strangers with whom I hope I have nothing in common. There are countless celebrities and book characters who have shown me what not to do and how not to act. And we must be grateful for all of them too. It's like the saying that the bad things help us appreciate the good things. I think we too often forget that. Nothing's special without a whole lot surrounding it that isn't special at all. We have to wade through that swamp to get to what's good for us. To get to the people that add up to who we are. 

Life can only be incredibly difficult without good role models. I've been blessed with too many of them which I think is a good problem to have. But there are so many kids and even adults who don't have this privilege. Role models can be found everywhere and I encourage those people to seek them out because they are always found in the most unlikely places. We all dream of being role models but we can only get there by following great role models of our own. 

Common App Essay Prompt #1

Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

So would my college application be incomplete without it? Is it that central to my identity? Should it be?

These are rhetorical questions. Or, more accurately, questions I'm asking myself. Maybe college applications are so extensive because they're about making you figure out who you are, not just the college. I'm not going to write up my college essay on here (sorry), in fact I'm finding it very difficult to write something I'm not putting in my essay. But I hope you're all looking forward to this day when being able to share your story will make college application essays a little less of a chore. Even if you find it strange to learn about yourself while writing an essay to teach other people about yourself... That's how this blog feels a lot of the time. So thanks for helping me learn about myself, everybody.