Life in retrospect and the light of prospect

My junior speech from 2013. I threw the title together on the spot.

Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, “Life is not about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.” Originally, I disagreed with this quote, thinking, that at some point in high school, I would suddenly just know exactly who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. I thought if I could just keep on surviving school, I’d figure it all out. If I could just keep up with grades and friends and social life, maybe one day it would just hit me, out of the blue, but after meandering my way through three years of high school, I have finally realized that it won’t. After these three years, I have finally come to understand that it is how I give back, and the things I do that make up who I am, and when I participate in those things, that’s when I am really creating myself. If I was a pyramid, then everything I do would be one little brick that makes up that pyramid. When I volunteer my time to help the community, I’m putting a brick on the pyramid, creating another part of myself. When I trained long hours in the gym and felt the successes and failures of my hard work, it was another brick. When I create art, I am building another part of the pyramid of myself. When I practice yoga and bellydancing, I am building another new part of me. When I take a step back, and assess how I’m doing, I can see that it’s not that great. But I can see now the steps that I’m taking towards creating a better person, and I won’t give up, because it takes time to build all these parts and pieces, and I know that, in the end, it’s going to get better.

When I was a freshman, I was really into volunteer work. The summer after eighth grade, I started volunteering at Shasta Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation. After freshman year, I continued with it over the summer. Once or twice a week, with a four hour shift. I was constantly on my feet, caring for baby birds who needed to eat every 20 minutes, and catching those that tried to escape their baskets. I also cared for birds in the flight rooms, and learned from more experienced volunteers as they fed the owls, hawks, bald eagles, and other birds of prey. I remember one day, I walked into the flight room to change the food, and as I stood watching the birds, I felt a small prickle of little feet on the top of my head. (shrug) Volunteering at SWRR was a major learning experience for me, and it was a really enjoyable way to give back. And so I put another brick onto the pyramid.

Freshman year was also when I started gymnastics. I’ve never been a big fan of traditional sports like football, basketball, baseball, etc, but gymnastics had always intrigued me. To be able to leap and tumble, to fly on the bars and balance on the beam-  that was a kind of magic, and I wanted in. I’d done it as a kid and loved it, but had to quit because of financial troubles. So I talked to my mom, and finally put my foot down and said that I really did want to get back into gymnastics. We agreed to find a way to make it work. And so began the greatest experience and upset of my life thus far. Over the summer it began to pick up really fast, taking me from recreational classes to a competitive team in the span of a few months. What had started as simple interest had flamed into passion, and as I took that passion to heart, I did not just find myself to be a gymnast, but created myself to be one, through pure hard work. Through the sport, I created a happier, stronger, more confident me, and by my own will power, created a more positive state of life. And that, [that] was a lot of bricks into the pyramid of me.

On at least one of my free days of the week, I volunteered at the gym’s summer day camp program. I played games and did crafts with the kids, escorted them on field trips to places like the bowling alley and the movies, and kept an eye on them as they tumbled around the gym. It also gave me the chance to play around with skills I wasn’t working on during practice. I loved that I could be giving back to the community and still have fun in the place that meant so much to me. And so there was another brick.

But I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life after high school. I toyed with all kinds of ideas. Veterinarian, wildlife rescuer, zoologist, dietician, flight attendant. But none of them made real sense to me, none of them fit. But I tried not to worry, because it would all work out. I’d find it sometime. Besides, I still had three years to decide, right? It was time to focus on the present.

Sophomore year was upon me, and little cracks had begun to appear in the pyramid. School was so much tougher. I was hard pressed to find time to fit everything into the week. School took up over half the day, and then I had training for several hours after that. By the time I got home, it was 8pm or later, and I was exhausted. But I still had homework and chores. Never mind the fact that my body needed sleep. And just when I hoped to catch a break, the week started anew and it started all over again.

            I started having a lot of pain in my back, so I went to the doctor and found out I had scoliosis. (show scoliosis xray) It put a huge damper on my gymnastics. In the beginning, it wasn’t so bad, but as time went on, it got worse, and it took more and more of my gymnastic ability away. By the end of the summer after sophomore year, I couldn’t vault or tumble on the floor without risking serious injury and immense pain.

            I decided to try homeschool during my junior year, so I’d have less stress and be able to better manage my back, and my gymnastics, but it didn’t work out. I didn’t want to go back to West Valley, so I decided on New Tech. I’m still debating whether it was the right decision or not. As school caught up with me, I found myself once more buried under the classwork. I never had time to make it to gym, and by then I was in too much pain to work on skills anyway. So in December, I quit the gymnastics team, for the good of my physical health. And that was when things really fell apart.

            Gymnastics had become such an integral part of me, and to lose it, all because my traitorous body couldn’t cope with it? That tore me apart. For months, I burned with rage and anger and depression and hurt and all the negative you can imagine. I just could not accept that it was over. And it showed. My grades plummeted. C’s, D’s, an F. I had no focus, no motivation. I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t know why I even bothered to get up in the mornings.

            But then I started to realize something. Gymnastics taught me so many things. It built so many bricks in the pyramid. And if I let the pain destroy me, then I would destroy all of those lessons, all of those bricks on the pyramid. If I let the pain destroy me, then what was the point of learning it all in the first place? If I focused on the pain of loss, I would never heal, and I would disgrace all of the things I worked so hard for. I have realized now that I have to take a deep breath, get up, and keep moving forward.

            Here at New Tech, I am stepping out of my comfort zone, looking for the bricks that will become part of the ever-growing pyramid. Art, for example. I was once a doodling artist, sketching on my homework. Now, my art skill has flourished into something bigger than just doodles. I have a good hand for portraits(show Jensen portrait on left), and paintings(show cubism and/or color star on right), and I have a new respect for artists of old. I’ve taken up yoga, and found it to be relaxing. I started bellydancing, and while I’ve found it challenging on my coordination, it’s exotic and lovely at the same time. I have plans to find a job or volunteer work again this summer in my free time, and I know that I want to take an art class at the college next year.

            It isn’t easy, creating this person that I am, but I can see now that it will be worth it. These bricks are making a pyramid that is better and stronger with each day. I have hopes and dreams and plans, and even when the going gets rough, I know that if I just keep stepping forward, if I just keep building this pyramid, I will survive. If I keep going, I will find these things that make me who I am, and through them, I will create a better and stronger me.