Who Am I?

 

 

My story is not so different from many others, my story is about life itself and growing up.  

 

 

Opening:

           18-year-old, Taylor, has no clue who she is.  What she does know is that she hates high school, and wants out of her small town.  She just wants to find acceptance.  She moves from her small town to the University of Kentucky and joins a sorority to reinvent herself.  Thinking she has everything planned out and life will come together like she planned. 

 

Call to Adventure:

            I wanted so badly to fit in and feeling like enough Getting my bid for my sorority was when my adventure began. 

 

Refusal:

            I went from a nerd who played clarinet and piano and loved to read and write to a party girl who would go to the library to study and hunt for boys.  The studying took back seat to my social life, because in high school my social life to a back seat to studying.  I didn’t want to go back to be a nobody.  I believed it was either social life or nursing school.  I was trying both, but I was not willing to give up the social life. 

 

Mentor:

            My friend Maria was a big part of my freshman year.  She helped me through nursing.  She was someone who brought me down to reality. 

 

Cross the Threshold:

            Applying to nursing school knowing that my grades aren’t good enough to be automatically accepted and getting waitlisted was not an option.  Realizing I may have partied too hard. 

 

Seeking Acceptance:

            Finding purpose and happiness with myself.  Learning more about myself and what I like.

 

Ordeal:

            I got waitlisted for nursing school at UK.  I was told I have to go in state to finish college and I picked Ball State.  I hated Ball State and everything I did, which ended up with me having depression.  I hit rock bottom.  I was no longer loving college and I hated sorority life.  I had no clue who I was anymore. 

 

Seizing:

            After moping and hating college, I decided to leave BSU for IU and switch my major.  Nursing was not giving me any pleasure and so it was time to give it up and switch to Education. 

 

Road Back:

            I ended up going to counseling to help me finish sophomore year and I found a class I loved even though it had nothing to do with my major.  I took history of the Vietnam War and it helped my GPA.  I ended up with a 3.9 GPA at the end of the year.  It had been my best since I started college.  I was finding my love for learning again, and not worrying about my image. 

 

Resurrection:

            Switching schools was not easy, since I had to double up on classes to make it to graduation in 5 years.  I wasted 2 years of college.  I had to start a new sorority chapter and I had a long-distance boyfriend.  The relationship became rocky and I was putting him over myself.  I felt lonely and still not good enough. 

 

Return with the Elixir:

            I found happiness, but it was not from joining a sorority or going to IU.  I loved those things, but my real happiness lied in my education in teaching.  I found meaning and happiness in student teaching on the Navajo Nation.  I went out there being told that I can’t “save” them and everyone is right you can’t, because they didn’t need me to save them.  I needed them to save myself.  I learned more about myself in 4 months, then I did in 5 years.  I went from a lost girl to an independent woman.