I became who I am today because of a life changing experience that occurred in late-November of 2013. As I sat waiting for the awards ceremony my palms got sweaty and the butterflies in my stomach multiplied. The announcer seemed to drag on the awards for hours when in reality it was only minutes until first place was awarded. It was then that I realized I was a State Champion. Throughout the summer leading up to my big moment I was constantly telling myself that practices were not worth it. I constantly felt left out of all of the summer activities my other friends were doing. While they were being kissed by the sun I was in the gym just as pale as I was the day before, and while they were floating on the lake I was drowning in my own
I am a runner. I was selected to be a cross country captain for my senior year and I had set myself a realistic goal of being one of the top five finishers at the state meet in the fall. I never had the thought that I could not do it; I knew I was going to be up there with the best. When the state meet came and I traveled with the team as captain, that race became one of the most memorable of my cross country career but not for the reasons I expected.
A person does not experience many events that shape their life in a large way, whether it be for better or worse. I have had just one major situation that has sculpted me into the person that I am today. In February of 2008, I was diagnosed with a life changing disease; it would relieve me of the agony I had been experiencing for as long as I could remember, but also restrict my diet for the rest of my life.
A few days later I was talking with a friend of mine who has achieved his dream and holds the position that he has talked about for the twenty some years that I have known him. My friend is great at what he does and has received recognition on both the State and National level multiple times over.
It was the end of my junior year, almost the end of the season, at one of the most important powerlifting meets. It was the last one before regionals and I wanted to do really, really good and beat the girl that had beaten me all season. Every meet that we went to, I just got closer and closer to beating her. I try my hardest to do my best at every single meet and give 110%, but at this meet things didn’t go as planned. I learned that everything can’t go your way and when something goes wrong you have to pick yourself up and move on.
Summer break of 2015 had been greatly anticipated. With vacations booked, camp outs planned, movie watching with friends organized, and trek on its way this summer was going to be an unforgettable one. Here we are June 10, 2015 ,my first practice in preparation for the next school year, 50 freestyle warm up, working on streamline, introduction to flip turns, and freestyle technique. Fifteen minutes in and I am dead, exertion setting in, and I am wanting to quiet. Then in my head I hear "Will it be easy?" nope, "is it worth it?", absolutely, after that a thought about quitting had not returned. Every other day from there on practice getting tougher and tougher. With
Joining the High School Cross Country team was a huge risk for me because I am quite shy and didn’t have friends on the team. I was the fastest girl on the team, but very slow in comparison to other schools. I was disappointed, and although I gave it a good effort, I knew that I could try much harder. I didn’t quit that year or the next because I knew that people expected me to keep running and I hate giving up, but there were many times when I wanted to quit. However, I decided that if I was going to keep running, I might as well give it more than just a good effort, I would give it my best effort and see if I could shave five minutes off of my 5k time. I started to work much harder and learned to persevere when it was hard and I wanted to
Summer vacation, and school ends for about three months, and then you have as much fun as you can, then back to school… right? Well I had to go to summer school, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Everything was going fine, I had a job after summer school, and that was going fine as well. They say that summer is supposed to be fun and exciting, and it usually is for me and my family. However in July my father started coughing up blood. My father usually doesn’t make it his top priority to go to the doctors, so he waited about four weeks until he really didn’t feel good.
Their will always be a life changing event that happens to everyone’s, everyday life. Mine started when I went to a summer camp in El paso, Texas. The camp is on a military base named Fort Bliss. I went to this camp two times, both were equally as fun and life changing. On base they had a wide variety of leadership reaction courses waiting for us.
One of the most important things that happened to me in my life was when I earned my black belt in karate. This was a long journey that took several year of my life to achieve. Getting my black belt and the process it took gave me the physical and mental toughness for me to be able to do several things that I do today in sports. During my journey I learned valuable things that are really important in life. I learned to have commitment and to persevere.
The time between September and January, I had to learn to push myself when I felt scared. For a few months, anytime I would go to practice I would try and complete the assigned practice but I always backed out when things got too tough. One day my hesitations of pushing myself became obvious to my coach so she pulled me aside and gave my a great lecture that influenced how I view my life today. I wish I could have recorded her talk with me, but the gist of our talk left me the greatest lesson of my life. When I am faced with trial and turmoil in my life, there are choices left for me to take. I either have to choose to fight, fit, or to fade. To fight, I have to push myself further than my own limitations. I have to look past my mind’s limit and succeed further than I thought ever possible. To fit, is choosing to stay in comfort, never changing, or to play it safe. To fade, is to give up on trying, forget motivation and to just curl into a ball of self pity and fade away. I choose to fight, I fought through my fear of working hard and pushing my heart rate higher than I felt comfortable. I continue choosing to fight everyday, I challenge myself from being comfortable. I chose my life to be lived this way because I decided that living comfortably would not give me growth or fading away would not give me life. I choose my life to be this way not because I had the will power to do so, but because I had the love and encouragement and great people around me. I was not alone during this hard time in my life, I had friends, coaches, family and God to give me guidance. Not a day goes by that I don’t look back at this time in my life with a smile. I am only thankful for everything that happened to me then and grateful for everything that followed after that time. My plan is to continue to fight and live my life
It had been a fairly good week. I received an A on another one of Mr. Jackson’s exams, and completed another week of eighth grade basketball ‘practice’, which in my case consisted of standing against the wall watching the starters run the plays. It was only my first year playing, so I was just enjoying being on the team with my friends. But that weekend was to be unlike most others in my past. I was attending my aunt’s wedding downtown. I was to watch my aunt, who I had known my whole life, and her boyfriend, who I had known for about 3 years, commit to each other the rest of their lives before the audience of people they knew the best. The last wedding I had attended, in 2004, was a very different experience for me. I was younger and knew less about how the world
There is a point in everyone’s life when they step back and realize “I can’t do this anymore, it’s ruining my life”. Many of my friends have started smoking cigarettes while drinking at a very young age, and continue to use this drug currently and don’t realize the affect it has on their future. While I have been smart enough to avoid smoking, I haven’t been as wise at making decisions when it comes to drinking. The amount of partying I’ve done in college has taken over my life, and has had a huge impact on my grades. Changing my drinking habits and continuing to avoid cigarettes will enable me to be the best I can be for the rest of my college experience.
I am by myself wearing my blue jeans and an old flannel shirt. It is cool outside but I decided to leave my gloves at home, feeling comfortable with my warm shirt and my sturdy boots.
There have been tons of things that I have learned and been taught in my life, by a number of people such as family, teachers, or even friends on occasion. The things they taught me vary from math and other related subjects to just some truly simple yet meaningful life lessons. However, there is nothing quite as unique, quite as special as a person teaching themselves a life lesson. It really is an amazing accomplishment for a person to teach themselves something. It is not quite as simple as another person teaching them something because it is not just the transferring of information from one person to another. The person instead has to start from scratch and process the information they have in their mind in order to come up with a new thought
It was dark that night, I was nervous that this dreadful day was going to get worse. Sunday, October 23, 1998 I wanted to start writing this to tell about the weird things i’m starting to see in this new neighborhood. Gradually I keep seeing pots and pans on the sink suddenly move to the floor. I would ask my sister but she is out with my mom and dad getting the Halloween costumes. When they got home I didn’t tell them what I saw because i've seen Halloween movies and I have to have dissimulation otherwise the ghost will come out and get me first. October 24, 1998 I think I got a little nervous yesterday with the whole ghost thing. 12:32pm, Went to eat lunch with the family today and I go to get my coat. I heard the words furious and madness,