I Remember...

I remember taking those first few steps out of the gym into the end of the cool February weather. My new Asics Gel running shoes crunching the half alive grass beneath each step were all I could hear. My steps quickened, before I knew it I was past the metal gate and was standing at the top of the concrete stairs. That annul feeling I got this time of year crept into my stomach. I stared down at about eighty kids if I was lucky standing around on the grass field. I mentally shoved the sickness out of my way, stood up straighter than ever, and walked down the empty stadium like I was Queen Elizabeth, and here I might as well been.

      
   

 I remember after the first week of running too many warm-up laps and what seemed to be an hour of agilities, my pride dwindle away as fast as the number of kids that would show up everyday. In two weeks the weather and social status of this activity jumped from “cool” to dreadful. The only time the weather changed was in my tub when I took ice baths three times a week. The social status of that definitely stayed at dreadful.
   

            I remember May 6, 2011, the “Grant
Bushman”. It always made me nervous to go to Moapa, but that day made the anticipated cocoons in my stomach turn into a mass of butterflies. I expected the meet to be just like every other one, a little like a long distance race, boring and exhausting. Little did I know I scored the most points that day. I left with two golds, two silvers, two new personal records, the “Most Outstanding Track Athlete” award, and a “movie scene” kiss from a pirate.

      
    I remember not always winning. Going to state in all four of my events was rewarding alone. The sick feeling in my stomach always shoots in when I think about those two days. My 4x1 team was disqualified; I choked in my other races and let it effect my jumping. To everyone else and me, for a long time, I had lost. I love to bring back that memory and the pain from it. It now is a huge part of my motivation I found in myself. No one can know joy without pain, love without hate, nor appreciate victory without defeat.

            I remember wearing paper thin, polyester uniforms. So light that the vinyl “VV” on my chest was heavy. I remember lacing up shoes that fit like gloves. On concrete I cringed every time I stepped. I might as well have been dancing on a chalkboard with the spikes of my shoes scrapping into the floor. But once I stepped on turf, where my shoes belong, the whole atmosphere changed. My spikes on the balls on my feet sank smoothly between the turfs. As if the ground turned into a huge hole of mud and I only was on the top, dry layer that would never break, making myself bounce rather than walk. I remember backing up routinely into the starting blocks that would determine the end of each race. I remember a white line I couldn’t cross, making sure I must trust my steps and focus on the distance I had to gain before landing in the sand. I remember a stick, trust, and full effort I couldn’t afford to drop. I remember finishing with no one in front of me. I remember that everything is put on my shoulders here, everything I do is me. I remember Virgin Valley Track.    

ThankGoodnessItsFriday!!

So much depends upon when the thoughts that send my nerves shooting to my gut are absent. The hour not spent in a gym, sprinting up and down a court. The instant moments I don’t have to regret when my anger and aggressive reactions get the best of me. The day I am not dressed in the same, unwashed uniform I wore the day before. Letting my hair fall all day, free from being tied up. A sweatshirt deflecting the blows of the harsh winds from getting under my skin. When I coat cream carelessly, covering the palms of my hands, worrying not of having a tight grip on anything. My jeans that protect even the lowest of myself when I am kicked to the ground. A pair of boots that keep my feet warm and comfortable, no laces have to be tightened enough to keep speed with the pace of everyone else. So much depends upon the days I don’t have a basketball game.

modest is hottest

"I find the whole concept of being ‘sexy’ embarrassing and confusing. If I do an interview with photographs people desperately want to change me – dye my hair blonder, pluck my eyebrows, give me a fringe. Then there’s the choice of clothes. I know everyone wants a picture of me in a mini-skirt. But that’s not me. I feel uncomfortable. I’d never go out in a mini-skirt. It’s nothing to do with protecting the Hermione image. I wouldn’t do that. Personally, I don’t actually think it’s even that sexy. What’s sexy about saying, ‘I’m here with my boobs out and a short skirt, have a look at everything I’ve got?’ My idea of sexy is that less is more. The less you reveal the more people can wonder."

-Emma Watson

Lesson Learned.

As I was...I AM.

When I was five, I had no idea I was about to start hating life.

Getting my first backpack, a bunch of new clothes and paper that wasn’t for drawing pictures of Cody Cannon and me on our wedding day.

From the get-go there is rules and regulations for everything. Kindergarten wasn’t a prison but as I look back on it, it was pretty close. Yes, we got play time with a lot of toys (that we had to share), and coloring pages (that told us we had to color certain spaces with certain colors), and recess (in freezing cold weather in the morning, and blazing hot by the time lunch came around).

Kindergarten teachers need some guidelines. The most important one would be, don’t ask for a student’s opinion if you’re not going to like it! “…. ‘The End.’ Did you like it?” Mrs. Biasi asked our class. Well yeah I guess we sort of did, I mean how many people write books about mice swimming in paint, permanently changing the color of their fur? “Yes!” we exclaimed in unison. “Do you want me to read it again?” Alright, maybe our excitement was too much, it was an interesting book but we just read it and our memory doesn’t seep out of our heads nearly as fast as our nose runs. We could probably recite it back to her by how slow she read it in the first place! And I didn’t know about the rest of my classmates, but my butt was numb. Just because the carpet has twenty-four individual, different colored squares, doesn’t mean it is fun to sit on. “No..!” I moaned. That split second decision got me my first “yellow card”; at least she learned not to ask for my opinion anymore.

There can’t be “the glass is half empty” point without it being half full. Elementary school wasn’t just so we could all learn our ABC’s, memorize our times tables, and cry when we read “Where the Red Fern Grows,” It was pretty much domestication. Realizing sometimes our opinions can hurt other people’s feelings, so keep them to ourselves. Knowing that there is a consequence for every action whether it is a red, yellow or green card for how well we follow the rules at school. Or being fined, thrown in jail, or making it home safely on how well we obeyed laws in society. Accepting the fact that no matter how good we are, sometimes we make stupid mistakes and sometimes we don’t forget them, so we need to learn and move on from them. This starts us to become who we are. My childhood, as I was in Elementary School.

Middle School, where life as we know it is hell. Unless you are some how fortunate enough that you’re ugly stage wasn’t that ugly, or you had a parent that worked at school. Lucky for you, I relate exactly to majority of the kids that go to the middle school, the fair but really unfair way.

It was strange how fast things can fall out of your head when you get to middle school. I swear we all just went through elementary school to be tamed and once we step on to the middle school campus we have instantly turned into wild animals again.

There is only one main focus in school I remember; besides having way too much homework in sixth grade, and that was popularity. Everyday was a competition.

Literally if you didn’t wear Hollister, or Abercrombie and Fitch, and your hair wasn’t a foot higher then it normally should be, you were not cool!

Sixth grade,

 I was a weirdo, I didn’t really care what anyone thought about me because I was in love with a video game, Kingdom Hearts, and I felt like I could conquer the world. I wasn’t popular.

Seventh grade

 I made the worst decision of my life. I tried out for the cheerleading squad,

 and made it.

 it made me sick to think that cheerleaders really tried to act like cheerleaders on the movies. I was never mean to anyone but I did try my hardest to look impressive to the girls who were, so they would accept me as their friend. They never did, they were just as mean, maybe even more mean to me than anyone.

There was a “U-turn” in my life when I got to the Eighth grade.

What happened to my seventh grade “friends”?

 Well what kind of people have something judgmental to say about every person we passed in the hall way and announce it so that person could hear it or make it so obvious that they were whispering about them it made that person feel self conscious?

Ones that feel so insecure about themselves they have to put those people who like who they are becoming, to start to hate who they are.

What kinds of teammates laugh, point, and make fun of the girls who might not naturally be as talented as they are?

Teammates that aren’t really in it for the team.

What kind of “Leaders” or “Captains”  make two girls stand in front our team and repeat the routine over and over again until they cry because they can’t get it right? Captains that don’t want to see anyone else succeed in anything.

Making another girl who was tall, and awkward, stand up and help them because she knew what they were doing was wrong. Those girls were who I called my friends.

When I made that single decision to stand up for what was right I paid the consequences of those girls starting to make fun of me, ignore me, make sure I was excluded from everything they could control, and I was okay with it even though most the time is wasn’t easy to go through.

I was rewarded in the eight grade with real friends I had found. I was almost okay with the fact that I had been going to school there for three years and I was still taller then every single boy, not including Tanner Kilmore, when no one found it attractive.

That turning point in middle school didn’t make everything perfect, I still hated it, but it made it worth it.

As much as I hated all three years of middle school, I will never regret one day. I will never regret not having one boy ever like me back. None of them were worth my effort and they all like me now anyway.

I will never regret being a part of a team that had mean girls who brought others down. It gave me the courage to stand up and say something to them.

I never regret my style, how I looked, how I was. That’s just who I was. Who I am.

Middle school taught me the most important lesson through the hardest times.

Don’t worry about what others think about you.

There are two kinds of people who enjoyed those years, of course the ones everyone looked up to because there ugly stage wasn’t that ugly or because they just didn’t care about everyone else. My only regret is I cared about the wrong people I almost became during my childhood as I was in Middle School.

    

 “Take a deep breath as you walk through the doors; it’s the morning of your very first day. You say ‘hi’ to your friends, you aint seen in awhile, try and stay outta everybody’s way. It’s your freshmen year and you’re gonna be here, for the next four years, in this town…”

My four years isn’t up. My childhood from kindergarten through fifth grade, sixth through eighth, freshmen to yesterday is still continuing on.
It’s not until now when I am forced to sit and contemplate my life lessons, and then write them down do I realize what they are.

Story time,

 the other day in Anatomy. “…by the end of your ninth grade year you’re pretty much fixed for what kind of adult you will be…” it was one of the rare things Mr. Vogel said that caught my attention. “Awe man, I am a weirdo!” As soon as I said it a smile formed on my face.

I was right, I am, but for some reason

I was happy about it.

Whether I take the consequences of getting in a little trouble so I can learn the right ways to act or not being popular so I can stand up for what I know is right. Those trials and experiences I had were for a reason.

To become who I am now.

To not only do things to do them but to do things to be something.

High school isn’t where we plan out our lives. It’s where we find the plan in ourselves when we discover and become who we really are.

Today will be a part of my childhood, tomorrow, as I am in High School.

Lesson learned.