8.5 x 11
8.5 inches by 11 inches. Those are the measurements of a piece of printer paper, often occupied by the contents of skills, experience and defining characteristics of an individual with their fingers crossed handing it over to the person on the hiring team of their dream job.
Twenty-two years, my age, but if we delete roughly seven to trauma, four to being too young to comprehend life, and two to being in a state of constant survival, that puts me at about nine years of life. Regardless, how do I put nine years, into words, onto one piece of paper and make it mean something? How do I stand out from every other twenty-two-year-old, with the same dreams and aspirations as me, likely just as qualified, if not more.
I could sit here and tell you about how I cried after getting my first C freshman year of high-school in front of my entire geometry class, how I was diagnosed four years late with a rare chronic illness that led to an emergency liver transplant at 15; which later led to three forms of rejection, liver and kidney failure, and a second liver transplant before turning 22. I could tell you how my parents divorced in fifth grade; how the death of my grandpa my junior year of high school influenced the next four years of my life and led me to major in Journalism at Colorado State University. While all of these events built my character and led me to become the person I am today, I like to believe I would still accomplish my dreams and aspirations regardless of the pity people may have allocated me.
I understand my life has been anything but conventional, however one shared thought- shared desire, I’ve held alongside many peers, was to be normal. For so long, all I wanted was to be normal. To sit at a dinner table with my entire family, to wake up every morning and just get ready- without having to choke down 14 pills, to be able to play contact sports, to finish school with my initial expected class. And I think wanting that, the pure desire, was the closest to normal I ever would be.
I use the past tense because, after looking death in the face again, shaking its hand, I spent three months in double organ failure, refusing to go back on the transplant list; okay with dying and uninterested in living. I turned around and found the will to live; after deciding there was more to life than being okay with dying, I recognized that was my biggest weakness. Contrary my biggest strength is my will to exist, live loudly. To embrace being different.
The world is a magical place. What a pity it is people let it take control and decipher its guidelines. We are all the exception, just by simply living. Breaking the odds to exist, let alone see the magic and beauty around us every day. What good is being normal and fitting in when we were born to be different? What good is shrinking to fit a page, when we were made to spill past the margins?
