Life Unexpected
Why have a life that is predictable…
When you can have a life that is the story to tell.
As we all know, life comes whether we expect it or not, and the best way I can explain you my side is if we begin at the beginning. My beginning starts off pretty normal. The youngest of two, with a normal set of parents. I was the brat of course, and the little sister that was always prepared to stir up trouble but simultaneously still being the sweet little angel. Makes sense, right? This lasted up until I was about 9 or 10 years old, this is when my life changed in the most unexpected way possible. My older sister of 3 years who was seemingly very normal, began to show some unusual symptoms. These are not the kind you’d expect from the becoming of a teen either, so can’t even blame any of the upcoming events of raising a teen! darn… My sister began having terrible migraines, which then led to night that is forever engrained in my brain, a night full of seizures. According to my very young memory at the time, I recount her having about 8+ seizures. This is the event for me that set everything else into motion. Personally, I don’t have every medical term, or account memorized, however I do have the next best thing... the way I see it. As life goes on I become very used to hospital visits, and learning something new everyday. Eventually, my sister lost the ability to walk, talk, and swallow; this meant slowly watching my older sister deteriorate. Definitely unexpected. I learned how to operate a G-tube, which is a tube inserted through the belly that bring nutrition straight to the stomach, and I learned how to crush medications that helped with her disorder. Now the disorder she was eventually diagnosed under is called M.E.L.A.S. I’m not so sure you are ready for it’s real technical name… ready? ok. M.E.L.A.S stands for Mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes. Crazy, huh? Now this disorder is a very rare genetic condition. Did you catch that? Genetic condition. Okay, I bring light specifically to this phrase, because we have no idea specifically how my sister formed this condition for the fact that my mom and I both tested for this gene and neither of us have it… Unexpected, huh? Now I won’t go too far into everything, just so I don’t lose you. Short story is, little sister turned big sister. I began learning how to take care of my older sister for the nights that my parents needed a break, a date night, cry night, whatever it is… I was there, crushing meds, administering care when needed. May I remind you I was still younger than 16. Now the only escape I had from this life was theatre, and school. You bet your butt I was involved. All through middle school, I was apart of student council, and working all the events I could for Orchestra, and Choir. High school, I was involved in the student councils (kind of), I was a cheer manager, and was an assistant for octathlon and decathlon. Now with theatre, I was always trying to step up and be involved in anyway I could, whether that be an officer in the company, or be a part of each show. I had my escapes, whether it was a healthy way of coping or not, it helped. Fun fact, my sister is really the reason I got into theatre, I would watch her on the stage and then say I want to do that too. We actually got the opportunity to be in a few of the same shows together, before the disorder took over both of out lives. When my junior year of high school came around, I was so used to the life I was dealt. Everything with my sister became routine. I was blind, but not as blind as I thought I was. I began noticing my sister becoming more and more tired. After family vacations, things just didn’t seem right. One day that is forever on my time clock is October 12, 2015. On this day, I started everything normal. I got ready for school, and was about to take off when my mom asked me to help clear the entry way because they called the hospital for the reason of my sister wasn’t doing too well. I obliged, I was then asked if I wanted to go to school or follow behind the ambulance to the hospital. Of course I wanted an excuse out of going to school, so I followed. I knew something was wrong, when I got to the hospital and my mom didn’t come and get me. My sisters nurse at the time came out to keep me company, and even she looked off. It’s the small unexpected things that foreshadow what is coming next. When the time came for my mom to come and get me, you would think she was an actress herself. However, we didn’t make it down the hall very far before she told me the exact words “She’s gone, Bethany is gone.”
Now I am a very dark humored person, so after I was done with my grieving, I was cracking jokes and was done crying for the day. I will tell you this. I didn’t deal or accept my grief until 4 years later. I will go into another posting on grief later. Now this post isn’t made to make anyone sad, or anything, it is mostly for me to show you my past and what brought me to this very moment. I am writing to you with more knowledge than I thought I ever had. I am sitting here with maturity and trauma I definitely didn’t expect to have. However, I am not sitting here denying any of my experiences. I may not remember every single detail of my life, because my brain decided to create a safety blocker, without permission. I am now graduated with an Bachelors of Arts with an emphasis in Theatre Performance. I am soon to begin my Master in Business Administration. I am beginning so many new life experiences, and am so prepared to share each one with you all. I will tell you this, an MBA is also apart of my life unexpected, because that too was very unexpected. Shall I give you some positives now after the very depressing middle? So, in my undergraduate experience, I learned it’s okay to get involved outside of your major (another upcoming post), it’s okay to join a sorority. I made and lost many friends for the fact of you are always learning more and more about yourself, because in college, you definitely don’t know everything, be ready to get knocked on your butt, get up brush off the dirt and then find yourself back on your butt another 20 times. College is a whole other side of life unexpected, that I won’t get into until the timing is right. Now, with all of this unexpectedness of life, what do you do about it? It’s okay to sit in the dirt and sulk for a little bit after you find yourself knocked down. However, it is not okay to build your house there, or dig yourself all the way at rock bottom, because trust me the climb back up hurts. I have learned throughout my past that even with maturing in the most unexpected way, I have built myself a foundation that will need a lot of digging to get undone. I am who I am, because God placed me in a life that was built to challenge and teach me in the most unexpected ways possible. Because who wants a life that they know what comes next, right? I know I hate movies that are too predictable, so why would you want a life that is the same?
