My Experience In My Life

Something as simple as a brighter smile can go a long way. Knowing you have a beautiful smile can boost your confidence, make you more approachable, and improve your general health. Through directed and positive work, dentists can transform their patient’s life; this is what makes dentistry special for me. When I entered college, my goal was to integrate ideas from gardening into other aspects of life; but before I could cultivate the world around me, I wanted to develop myself.

For the majority of my life I have belonged in the little world, stretching from Chicago to Cleveland and South Bend to Nashville. The boundaries of my known world have always felt like a limiting factor in my life. While my friends ventured to far away lands every year, I would spend the night at my grandparents house or we would make a day-trip to a city. With spring break approaching my family and I were going to change that, we were going to South Carolina.

As I'm writing this, we have just returned from a 5 day hospital stay. Life has become a series of doctors' appointments, tests, and hospital stays. This is life with a chronic illness. . . especially one of which not much is known. But life wasn't always this way.

The airport right now is packed. The steady sounds of feet against flooring echoes in my ears. A child's scream brings me back from a daydream. For a second I forgot where I was or what I was about to do.  I honestly still can't believe this is happening. Especially to me. From the dull normalized life I live, I am about to throw in a mixture of crazy the likes I couldn't even fathom.

Knowing who you are is an important step in life. Knowing your identity is something that is expected of you before you even graduate highschool. When students are being surveyed for acceptance, they are being chosen for what they have done rather than what they can do. Granted, what you have done is a good reflector of what you can do, but what you can do isn’t what you have done. I come from a family that values hard work and character. No one in the entirety of my family has any special diploma or fancy piece of paper that tells everyone what they are good at. No one in my family has any clue what I am writing about right now.

When I was younger, I always found myself with a pencil and paper in my hand. I would leave a multitude of marks on the paper in some form or fashion, whether it be scribbles, repetitive words and sentences, my name, or the names of family members. Growing older, I would find myself writing more than enough when it came to essays. I could never bring myself to leave out any details and I rarely used simple sentences. Originally, I thought it was because I wanted the validation of my parents and teachers, but it was something else I had yet to realize. I liked writing and it hit me one day when I was in my room, listening to music.

The wind serrated past my body. I hesitated, reminiscing all the memories we treasured years ago. Sitting down on a nearby bench, looking at the emptied bus stop. I ran my fingers through the leathery pages of my small book that my father had given me. How long it has been? Five… six years? The clouds suddenly swirled and closed the sky, the thunder roared. Girls of all ages and appearances rushed through the streets as they had just finished school. I smiled mirthlessly.

I was sitting in the plane going to where my mother lived when she was a kid, finally landing at the only airport in my entire state and the 45 min drive to my “home” I felt a new emotion I had never felt or known about at the time, anxious. First an outcast as an American with Indian heritage, but now as another outcast but this time as an Indian with American heritage. I recall on my thoughts that I had sprinting throughout my mind as the heat kept pounding against my skin. Not sure whether to be nervous, Thrilled, or homesick. It wasn’t the night my parents decided it was best for my brother and I to go to India and live there for 2 years it was that night, my first night sleeping without the same bed, power rangers bed set with yu-gi-yoh and Pokémon pillows that I had realized my life was never going to be the same.

It has been an eventful four years here at Christopher Dock. I went through a lot and I am proud of who I am becoming. I am not the shy, quiet and awkward kid that I was coming here but instead, I grew into a kind, confident and selfless individual ready to take on the world. Thanks to the adversity that I went through, I was rewarded with what I desire the most in this life: God, Friends and Family. The adversity that I had go through was letting go of my past, restoring my lost faith to God and stop being dependent onto my brother Tyler. Without doing those three things, I would not be where I am today. Now I would like to reflect on my growth throughout all of these four years.

My eyes were filled with tears and my hands sweaty. I was nervous about how mommy would look after coming home from the hospital. I was 10, it was daytime outside, but inside and all around me it was nighttime, darkness was coming and it filled me with terror. My mother worked as a nurse in the local hospital, I could smell her uniform even today.

After my dad passed, my life took a turn. My family was falling apart and I was just a little child at the time. I felt as if I was drifting at sea all alone. My mom had to work twice as for our family to thrive and me and my brother, Allen, had to give up our childhood belongings to attend school. I started to see my mom less often than I used to and that made me go through a depression phase.

Until I was about nine years old, I never felt uncomfortable about myself. Sure I had funny glasses, large frizzy hair, and a smile which stretched just a tad too wide, but it was just who I was. Fourth grade seemed to be the pivotal moment where the issues started which would later go on to shape the rest of my life. It started off innocently enough. Who do you like, do you want to go shopping, can I paint your nails, etc. I would respond simply. I don’t like anyone, I don’t want to go shopping, no I don’t want you to paint my nails. I had no idea then, but these were not the answers people expected me to give. They wanted to know which boy I liked, when we were going to go shopping, and how I wanted my nails painted. Shortly I found myself spending most of my time alone. I didn’t understand it. What was wrong with me? Why did I not like doing the things other girls liked doing? I feared the answers that I might give, so those questions went largely unanswered.

In life, many times we face the most difficult obstacles. Never did I imagine that I would face a time in my life as challenging as the Summer of 2009. When I was in 4th grade, I found out my family and I would be moving to Broken Arrow. At first, I was so excited to go to our “brand new” house. It was then that I realized moving to a new city meant making all new friends, and basically starting over. I didn’t know what would happen at that point, but here I am 8 years later and I couldn’t be happier with my life. Moving to Broken Arrow was frightening at first, but in the long run gave me many new and exciting opportunities such as making new friends, becoming involved in my church, and making incredible memories in my school’s marching band.

Since I worked and went to school, it took me six years to get through four years worth of college. I earned by BA in Literature and Writing from CSUSM in 2005. More than seven years had passed since the evening of my conversation with Rebecca. I had long since lost contact with her, and my life veered way off course from seven and a half years earlier.

The time was coming near, before I pass I must pass my medicine bag onto my great grandson. I started my journey leaving my home in the reservation where I live. I put on a big black hat with my long black coat, over my bright red satin shirt. I wore my beaded bolo tie under my collar as a formal accent. I had stuffed my boots with money that my family would need to provide for my funeral. Knowing I would not come back I waved to all my friends on the reservation as I boarded the bus to take me to my only living descendents house, which I have been longing to see, and now will get to before I die. The bus ride from South Dakota to Iowa lastest nearly two and a half days. On the bus I mostly tried to sleep or muttered songs to myself, nobody sat near me which didn’t bother me at all. When I arrived I was tired and stiff from sitting for so long, but I was determined to make it to my family’s house. After wandering around the city for a while I had stopped to rest at a large building, nothing here was familiar to me. Suddenly, a large man who had many weapons around his waist come over to talk to me. He was very nice and guided me to the nearest bus stop and told me how to get to Bellview Drive, a street i’ve have been saying over and over again in my mind. I had took the bus that the man had instructed and got off at Bell View Drive. I had been searching for their household by number but when I walked on the sidewalks it was hard to see the other side of the street. So I started walking in the middle of the street looking on both sides as I walked. As I kept walking wolf-like creatures started following me attacking at my feet but I had to find the house so I brushed it aside. Then children started to congregate behind me. I kept walking till Martin had found me and shued my parade away.