Music defined a lot of memories and moments of the past ten years, so for each year I’ve picked some of the songs I listened to that year. I didn’t touch a lot on the most recent years, and that’s because I did a lot of that in recent posts, but writing all this down I realize how much I’ve been through, grown, and learned these past ten years. I’m so excited for the next ten.

2010:

This was a good year. I was finally growing up, hitting those double digits. I was a big girl, or so the paintings my sister made for my birthday said. I was the oldest in elementary school, still living in Austin. We were the big kids, although it didn’t feel like it because I hadn’t grown much from the height I was in kindergarten. This was the year of “Tik Tok” and dancing to it endlessly on the newly released Just Dance on the still intriguing and fascinating Wii. This was the year at camp where I heard “You know you love me / You know you care” thinking, Wow this girl is good, and then hearing the words “Baby, baby, baby” and realizing this was the glorified Justin Bieber song everyone but me had heard. This was the year my sister started high school and really grew up. Things were changing. Soon, I would be going to middle school and everything would be different. My life was great. I was growing up, feeling older, healthy. Did I peak?

2011:

I thought I was healthy. This was the year my life changed, and I wouldn’t even realize it until seven, eight years later. I’ll never forget walking into that doctor’s office and hearing him say I had thyroid cancer. My mom told me I could wait outside the room if I wanted to, but I was too scared. I was afraid if I left the room I would burst out crying, because tears were already welling up in my eyes and the whole room was blurry. I didn’t know what to do or what to think. Was it possible to have cancer three times in your life in just eleven years? The doctor left the room with the plan to do a biopsy. I burst into tears. I didn’t know what cancer really felt like before because I was so young, but I knew what it felt like now.

I finally graduated elementary school. And the very next day I was in an operating room getting my thyroid and all the cancer removed. Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” came out this year, and while I didn’t appreciate it then, I do now.

Long car rides meant listening to a lot of music. I loved dueting with my sister to Selena Gomez’s “Who Says” and listening to Coldplay’s “Paradise” among other songs on repeat. We did a lot of driving back and forth to Houston this year, because that’s where my hospital was.

After the surgery I stayed in Houston for a while. I guess even when you’re older cancer has a way of blocking out memories because I don’t remember much, but what I do remember is tubes hanging out of my neck. And I remember a big scar on my neck. And I remember having dreams of me telling people at school what my scar was and why it was there. I thought about it a lot.

And then in July I had radioactive iodine treatment for the first time. Basically, my body is deprived of iodine for about two weeks and then all of a sudden, an iodine pill is introduced to my body. Since I’ve been deprived for so long, the cancer immediately attaches to the iodine so when they do a scan, they can see the cancerous lymph nodes and kill them off with higher doses of iodine if necessary. I needed treatment that year, so I stayed in a hospital room by myself overnight. It was unsettling. I was watching Tangled until late at night when a nurse came in to check on me. I’d never been alone in a hospital for this long.

And then I got mono somehow. This was the first time I truly dissociated. I thought my mom was trying to kill me. I’m not sure what happened, but my mind played tricks on me. I remember watching a lot of Full House and America’s Next Top Model. And my forehead swelled up so much I looked like Frankenstein. I was supposed to go to camp but I couldn’t.

And before I knew it, I was packing up all my stuff and moving to Albany, New York. I was starting a new school, unfortunately back in elementary school for sixth grade. But everyone was so nice and welcomed me with open arms. Some of these people, I wouldn’t realize they’d follow me to senior year of high school and graduation.

But moving came with anxiety. This was the first time I experienced real anxieties. I’d wake up in the middle of the night with such intense stomach pains I’d be crying. I’d sit in the bathroom wishing them to go away. These pains caused me to get a colonoscopy and start therapy.

I also got diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency. It seems funny to call me short, and it is now, but it wasn’t funny when it was an actual medical condition. They told me I should start treatment. So every day I would get an injection, a small needle, but a needle nonetheless. I became so good it at I would do them myself. And every three months I had to get the big, 30-second-long, 3-inch-needle injection. I would be in my math teacher’s classroom and look out the window on the door and see my mom waiting to pick me up to take me to get the big injection. Fear and dread would wash over me, but I’d collect myself and put on a brave face and go.

But there were good memories. I remember occupying the large master bedroom for hours on end dancing to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and singing along. And I kept going to dance classes, performing to Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger” and feeling free. This year was hard. I look back on this year now and see everything that happened and I realize my struggles now come from this year. This year was incredibly hard for an eleven-year-old.

2012:

As if last year wasn’t enough, this was the year I got diagnosed with scoliosis. We all had to line up in the gym and the nurses would quickly come by and measure your curve and move on to the next person. Except they spent just a minute longer on me, and I knew something was wrong. And just months later I was getting fitted for my first braces, one to wear at night and one to wear after I got home from school. They’d last the next two and a half years.

But when I wasn’t wearing the brace at home I was dancing to “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “22” in our big living room with the red piano, coming up with choreography and pretending I had other people dancing on stage with me.

This was also the year I finally, for real this time, graduated elementary school and entered junior high. I was so excited to have my own locker, to have nine (yeah, weird school) periods, and to make new friends.

In social studies that year, we had to do a project on Native Americans and write words to put to an existing song. My group decided to do ours to the newly released “What Makes You Beautiful.” This was the year I watched The Hunger Games, not fully realizing how epic and important of a story it was. It felt so dystopian then, but it doesn’t anymore living in this age.

I still spent a lot of time karaoking in my sister’s room, dancing and singing to songs like “Want You Back” (Cher Lloyd if you didn’t know) and doing the hand motions my cousins came up with to “Glad You Came.” I also spent so much time trying to learn the lyrics to “Royals” so that I could sing them in gym class and act like I knew the song. I wanted to be cool. I wasn’t.

This was also the first year I went to Double H Ranch, the camp that would change my life. Not sure if I’ve talked about it here before, but it’s a camp for children with chronic illnesses. I was so reluctant to go because I knew it wouldn’t be the same as my camp in Austin. But after leaving, I was so sad I couldn’t do anything. I’d never felt that way before, but that was the impact this place had on me. To this day, whenever I hear “Love on Top” I immediately am transported to camp and everyone singing it at the top of their lungs.

2013:

We finally made it to those teen years; I turned thirteen this year and was an even bigger girl. But more importantly, I celebrated ten years of being in remission from the leukemia.

I remember listening to “Wrecking Ball” for the first time and watching the music video and being devastated that the Miley Cyrus I used to know and love was gone. But we also had classics like “Mirrors” come out, and soon after we would buy the whole JT album so my sister could prepare for the JT concert she would go to the next year. And oh my, this was the year of Frozen. “Let It Go” will forever and always be stuck in my head.

I got to end my growth hormone treatments this year. But I also was hospitalized for the first times because of high calcium levels, and then low calcium levels. We also moved to our current house which was bigger and I got to paint my room for the first time. It’s yellow. My sister just made fun of me last week for painting it this color, but I don’t care, it’s happy and it sparks joy, as one Marie Kondo would say.

2014:

I graduated junior high and started high school. I thought these would be the best four years of my life. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My sister graduated high school and left for Stony Brook. I had to learn how to live without her for the first time, and that was extremely hard at first, but we made it through and now it’s normal that she’s not home.

I spent a lot of time listening to the new Taylor Swift album in awe of songs like “Blank Space.” And later I would become obsessed with Ed Sheeran and his “Photograph” and “Thinking Out Loud.” I also remember dancing endlessly to “Shut Up and Dance” and screaming Sia’s “Chandelier.” Although I didn’t know it then, she would become one of my favorite artists.

At camp I’d listen to all kinds of music and associate memories and songs there, but the one that sticks out the most is “Rather Be.” We made up a dance to it, and during the camp dance, we’d all get in a big circle and do the made-up moves, singing along to the lyrics and thinking of the magic of camp.

But I think the memory that sticks out the most is the one I’ve shared before. I was sitting in bio class, the lights were off and my teacher was going to show us a music video. It started with a kid who had cystic fibrosis and all the things he’s done in his life despite his illness. And then OneRepublic (one of my favorite bands to this day) starts playing “I Lived” and I’m entranced. And by the end of the video I’ve made a pact to myself: I will take every opportunity that comes my way if it makes me happy and it’s something I want to do. And if I know I’ll regret missing out on it in the future, then I need to do it. And if it will make me unhappy, then I should let it go. I’ve tried living by that ever since.

One of those opportunities was getting tested to see how many viable eggs I had left. I don’t really tell anyone this, but I think about it often. Because of my treatment, my reproductive organs were harmed, and there was a good chance I wouldn’t have enough eggs to carry me into adulthood and allow me to have my own children. So we went to a fertility clinic, but they didn’t know what to do because they’d never worked on a fourteen-year-old. We did a simple blood test, but we never went further because I was so young. I still think about this and what it means for my future. But I’m not sure what else to do about it.

2015:

I started sophomore year and felt more a part of high school. My mom would drop me off and I’d walk toward the front entrance of Shaker High blasting Troye Sivan’s “YOUTH” in my ears, so in love with the beat. And then I’d be in gym class playing badminton with my friend (which I was so bad at) but I’d be having a good time singing along to “Heartbeat Song.”

This summer I got to see Taylor Swift in concert which was a dream come true. Shawn Mendes opened for her, and I remember hearing “Stitches” for the first time and falling in love with the song. One of my all time favorite Adele songs came out this year: “When We Were Young.” I wouldn’t actually hear it until a couple years later when someone would sing it on The Voice, but it still makes me feel all the feels to this day.

2016:

I got my permit and learned how to drive. I was a terrible driver, I still kinda am. I ended sophomore year ready to be an upperclassman but not ready for the work that entailed.

Junior year was the year of SATs and college visits and me deciding to drop my dream of becoming a doctor and do computer science instead. It was also the year of me blasting “Closer” so loud in my ears in the hall that my friend had to point out how loud it was. And going to dance class and stretching to “This Town” and “Million Reasons,” still favorites to this day.

The first time I heard Sia’s “Bird Set Free” was actually watching Laurie Hernandez on Dancing With the Stars. The song and that dance are things I’ll never forget. I also remember watching Louis Tomlinson and Steve Aoki (who I would see perform at Cornell years later) perform “Just Hold On” on The X Factor just a day after Louis’ mom passed away. I remember feeling so sad for him to the point I almost cried.

And of course, “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” came out and I still sing along to it three years later.

2017:

I guess everything started to change this year. We’d spent so much time and effort on my physical health we never bothered to check up on me mentally.

College visits, SAT scores, APs, all of it was piling up. I dissociated for the first time in March (read previous posts for more details). And right after that, Ed Sheeran’s new album came out and I was listening to “Castle on the Hill” on repeat, heck I still do.

I saw a therapist and psychiatrist for the first time and started some medications. I didn’t pay much attention to my mental health though. Not yet anyway.

I got my license this year and would blast “What Lovers Do” and “The Cure” and have my private concert in the car to and from school. I kind of hoped no one thought I was talking to myself.

This was my first year as an alumni at camp, and I still remember dancing and singing to “Most Girls“. And then senior year began and so did the stress of college applications, but camp had changed my life so I used it in my essay. When I wasn’t writing essays or finishing calc homework or texting the AP Chem group chat about labs, I was singing along to “Getaway Car” and “Malibu“. And then December came and I dissociated again and missed my last December chorus concert. My mental health was really coming into effect. What now?

2018:

This was the year everything would change. Everything was going great until May. I had a lot of social drama, high school drama, and it took a toll on me because I dissociated again. And it was during this episode that I listened to “In My Blood,” not for the first time, and I realized how close to home the lyrics hit. I felt understood.

And then I graduated high school and my sister graduated college and we were growing up and moving on. I had gotten into a school of my dreams and was so excited. I spent weekends dancing to “Havana” and “Love Lies” and enjoying my free summer before college.

I celebrated fifteen years in remission from my leukemia, and I was ready to make real friends in college and move on to better things. I got to spend time in North Carolina visiting family and I met my cousin’s five-month old son for the first time.

My sister moved to Cincinnati in August, and I felt sad knowing I’d see her even less often now. But I knew school would keep me busy. Freshman year started off great. I got to join a dance team and went to see Ed Sheeran in concert with one of my new college friends. But first semester was so hard. So hard that, no surprises, I dissociated again in December, through Christmas and New Year’s, all the way until I almost had to go back to school.

2019:

And now this year. I hit the lowest point in my life this past January, when I wanted to give up on everything. And then I hit a huge high at the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London.

Dreams came true on New Year’s Day when I got great seats to see Wicked on Broadway, something I’ve been wanting to do for such a long time.

This year was hard though. I thought second semester of freshman year was going a lot better, but it wasn’t until April when I dissociated again that I retracted my thoughts. And then I dissociated again in June and again in November. For so long I’d focused on my physical health I never imagined my mental health would be an issue. But I’m doing all this processing and thinking now that I’m older.

I listened to LSD, a group with Sia, playing “Thunderclouds” and “Genius” on repeat. And when I wasn’t dancing or singing, I was traveling. I finally got to go to Europe, something I’ve been wanting to do for years. Paris and London were magical for me, and really high highs.

I spent the summer resting but also working and preparing for a better school year. I spent a lot of time learning the words to Imagine Dragon’s “Whatever It Takes,” a song that got me through rough times, as well as OneRepublic’s “Start Again“.

I spent my sophomore year days blasting “Lover” and “South of the Border” and trying to get through never-ending assignments. I learned who my real friends were, I suffered through some health issues, I dissociated in November. But then I got to visit family in North Carolina for Thanksgiving. And after finals, I went on a cruise to the Bahamas with the other side of my family.

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And now I’m here. A new year, a new decade. These past ten years have been the most filled ten years. I went from elementary school to college. I had cancer. I got diagnosed with so many things and fought through them one by one. I discovered what it meant to take care of yourself mentally. I travelled. I moved. I tried new things. I had new opportunities. I had lows, tears, and pain. I had highs, happiness, excitement. I can’t say this past year was great and that this past decade was easy. I’m ready to start over and start fresh. I’m ready for ten years with no cancer and a better mental health status. I’m ready to really live my life.

In a post I wrote earlier this year, I mentioned the definition of survivor: “a person who continues to function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks.” And I said right now I was just functioning. These next ten years, I’m going to prosper and thrive. Ten years later, when I write about the past decade, I don’t want to chronicle all the medical issues I had and the pain and sadness I felt and end 2029 feeling how I do right now, a little bit hopeless. I want to be thriving. And that means going back to that promise I made myself freshman year of high school and doing things that make me happy, taking once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, and putting my energy in the right people. This year, these next ten years, will be better. I’m going to thrive.