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?

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So I’ve been feeling a lot of things recently and I need to tell someone, so what better way than to publish it on the Internet for everyone to see? Just kidding, but I really need to tell some people some things and I’m too scared to do that in person, so I hope this does that. If you’re my friend, or family member, I hope this explains some stuff. And then I hope you ask me about it. I really want to be asked about it, but I’m too scared to just talk about it.

I’m about to reference a lot of my medical history, so if you want a more in depth look at my life, you should read the About Me page or the piece I wrote last summer, I Lived. But I’ll give you a brief summary here if you’re short on time:

I had leukemia when I was seventeen months old, and then I relapsed when I was three which is when I underwent extensive treatment. As a result, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when I was eleven, and also have a myriad of smaller, but still significant health issues, including cataracts (bad eyes), scoliosis (bad back), growth hormone deficiency (I’m a shorty), reproductive system problems (bad organs), and, the one that’s hardest for me to admit, mental health issues (anxiety, depression, all the good stuff). Wow life really sucks sometimes. I would know.

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Have you every felt utterly ashamed of something about you? Something you did? Something you regret not doing? Just something in your life? I’m most ashamed of the thing I’m supposed to be most proud of. I’m ashamed of my medical history. I’m ashamed that I had cancer.

Isn’t that ironic? Aren’t I supposed to be proud that I beat cancer three freaking times and I’m alive and thriving? Aren’t I supposed to be proud that I have made it this far in life and am this successful? But instead I’m utterly ashamed, and that’s just plain sad and pathetic.

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I’m posting this today, July 8, 2018, because, as you will soon read, today marks fifteen years since my cord-blood transplant. This is the thing that has allowed me to live, and I couldn’t be more thankful. I’m not going to preface this too much because pretty much everything you need to know is in the piece. But this piece is by far my most personal and revealing. I’ve been through a lot, and I don’t tend to share it. But here it is anyway.

Here’s the original music video to the amazing song mentioned in the beginning of the piece: I Lived – OneRepublic.

Here’s my version: I Lived.

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I am sitting in a dark room surrounded by twenty-five kids. We are freshmen, adjusting to high school and sitting through boring classes. The biology teacher rambles on about the human body, diseases, anatomy. It’s interesting, but I would rather be home.

She mentions cystic fibrosis, a disease affecting the respiratory system and blocking one’s lungs. We take some notes; mine look like a rainbow, in different pen colors so as to keep me interested. Then, she mentions a video she would like to show us. A music video. The song is by OneRepublic and it features a young man who has cystic fibrosis and lives with it. But doesn’t just live with it. He pushes his disability and his life to the limits. He’s happy.

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