Personal Narrative

In October of 2011, my mom was diagnosed with stage 3a breast cancer with eight positive lymph nodes; I was in fifth grade at the time. I remember hearing my mom crying downstairs alongside my dad, so I went downstairs to see what was wrong. They sat me down on the bed and broke the news. I never thought in a million years that this would happen to family, every day I asked myself why, why me? I asked why me as if cancer had taken over my life, and in a way, it had. On top of battling cancer, my mom had to deal with my brother who was eight at the time. He refused to even look at my mom without a wig on. My mom decided that she would shave her own head, taking one thing off the list of things that cancer could and would take from her. Over the next seven months following my mom’s diagnosis, she had chemo every two weeks for five months, 33 sessions of radiation, and two surgeries, a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy. During these seven months, my dad did everything, he made dinner and took care of my mom, he took my brother and I back and forth from school, social events, and sporting events. Finally, in April of 2012, my mom was diagnosed “cancer free”, I finally had my mom back. To this day, she takes chemo pills every day and will for the next four years. I remember I was out on the lake one day with my mom and one of my friends, and my mom was wearing a bathing suit that was meant for someone with boobs. So, when she would bend over or basically make any movement at all you could see right into her bathing suit where her boobs used to be, this area is now occupied by huge scars. Being the young, immature kid that I was at the time, I found myself embarrassed that my friend could see right through her bathing suit, so I said to my mom, “Mom pull up your bathing suit you can see into it.” She replied and said “Quinn it doesn’t matter, there’s nothing there.” This goes to show that even on some of her worst days, she found light in negative situations. To see the person, I love and look up to most in this world, in such a weak and vulnerable state, was an experience I cannot even put into words. Throughout my mom’s battle with breast cancer I learned that not only is my mom the strongest person I know, but that life takes unexpected turns. For this reason, I no longer take life for granted, I live every day of my life to the fullest.

Since I’m now living life to the fullest, I’ve decided to stop doing things that don’t make me happy. For example, I have been playing soccer since I was three years old and was planning on playing in college. However, this past year I found myself skipping practices and being miserable every time I actually did go. I realized that I was still playing soccer because that is what everyone expected me to do, they expected my to play in college and they expected me to play club soccer. In reality, this was not what I wanted at all. My parents were paying all of this money and giving up their weekends to take me all over the country for a sport that I didn’t even love anymore. This past September, I told my parents that I just couldn’t do it anymore. They didn’t understand the pressure that had come with soccer over these past few years. My parents were devastated and angry for the next few weeks after I quit. Your parents are supposed to support you no matter what you decide to do with your life. After they came to terms with my decision, that’s exactly what they did. Your parents are your biggest supporters and all they want is for you to be happy. Soccer taught me so many things and took me so many places and I don’t regret a single moment of it (besides the physical demand). Since I’ve quit, I have so much more time to focus on school, friends, and family. I’m the happiest I have ever been in a long time.

During my sophomore year of high school, I got my first real boyfriend. In the beginning everything was fine, we would hang out with our friends go out on the lake do everything normal high school aged couples would do. After a few months it turned into a mentally abusive relationship. I wasn’t “allowed” to go out with my friends “or else”, I wasn’t “allowed” to wear certain things. He became manipulative and controlling. I pushed away nearly all of my friends out of fear that if I did those things listed above, he would leave me. The friends that I had left recognized that he wasn’t a good person, but in my mind the good outweighed the bad so I listened to what he said over my friends. I convinced myself that this was a normal relationship and it was how things were supposed to be. After about seven months, he cheated on me. I was devastated and blamed it all on the other girl because I was still convinced that he could do no wrong. I became severely depressed to the point that I basically gave up on school and soccer. I stopped trying and caring about everything and everyone. When he was with her and would still text me and call me, I thought that this meant maybe he there was hope. Realistically, he was just keeping me around for his own pleasure. I was emotionally incapable of not caring and walking away, I confused love with obsession and played right along with his games. After months of being in a very dark place, I blocked him on all social media and completely took myself out of his life. He would still send me threatening messages on his friends’ phones, it got to the point that my parents realized I was miserable, I wouldn’t even leave the house. My mom just happened to be very close to his mom, so she mentioned it to her. He called my mom and was “so sorry” and said that he “never meant to hurt me” but we all knew that was just another lie. Having reconnected with old friends I was able to eventually move on with my life. I realized that he wasn’t worth my tears and anger, quite frankly he wasn’t worth anything at all. I began to take pride in myself again. Once I completely cut him out of my life, my grades came up and I started performing better in soccer. I promised myself that I would never let a boy or anyone for that matter take advantage of me and control me like he did. Life is too short to worry about people you won’t even remember in the next twenty years. Nothing was more satisfying than when I began to love who I was again.