It’s amazing how one event or experience can alter your life forever. Hopefully all of the experiences are positive, pleasant, or at least satisfactory. It’s hardest though, when the moment is painful or abrupt. Unexpected death is one of those awful human snow globes that shake things up and lands everything in a different place.
I believe everyone goes through at least one of these experiences in their lifetime. Most people go through many without even realizing it. I can’t pinpoint one specific minute that began the Domino effect, but I do know the exact year or time period I should say.
A few months before my senior year in high school began, warning signs started popping up, but I was oblivious to them. Every time I would eat, I’d start to feel sick, so I started eating less. Subconsciously losing weight, unknowingly marking the onset of my battle with anorexia.
It was early August of 2000, volleyball season had begun and my parents were out of town. My best friend Erin was staying with me since my sister had already gone back to college. Erin and I stayed up until 3am talking. We talked about what she would do if I had an eating disorder, how she would react (see how I get these premonitions?). I got up at 5am for the first of three practices that day. By 8am, I was driving home listening to the radio and decided that my theme song was “I’m in a Hurry and Don’t Know Why”. Once again, another sign passed between my ear and I failed to recognize it.
Within a month, I had a nervous breakdown and hit rock bottom. The diagnosis of clinical depression followed the next day and I had to reevaluate my life and priorities. I began living my life for me, to have fun, to be 17 and not 45 for once. It was a rough battle. Then came the first realization from family and friends that I was anorexic and endangering myself. The verdict was that I was bulimic anorexic, meaning that I over exercised and did not eat enough to count that. I ate minimally and exercised as much as four hours a day.
Not only did I become lost physically and mentally, but socially. Erin and I couldn’t stay friends through it. We didn’t know how to manage without stepping on each other’s toes. I don’t even know if that makes sense in this context, but it just hurt too much. She thought being brutally honest by telling me that I looked like I had been in the hospital for a month and looked gross would stop me, but it crushed me instead. How was she to know how to deal with this, when I didn’t even know myself?
I became reacquainted with Melissa, a friend from eighth grade. She turned into my new best friend. She and Aleta got me through December until February. They gave me happiness everyday; especially the two days a week I drove an hour to another time zone to spend three hours at the eating disorder clinic. Those twelve weeks were difficult, but survivable.
Then in February decision time arrived. Should I play a sport that was my summertime solace for so many years so quickly after shelving the disorder? Softball was a sport that I had never had to extend much effort towards. It had always been one fun thing I did for myself and I was blessed with some natural athletic ability. Granted I didn’t have the best three seasons prior, but wasn’t senior year supposed to be different? Hadn’t I been through enough already this year? So I went for it. I knew it would be hard for my body physically and my coordination since I had altered my body composition so. But wouldn’t it also jump-start the friendship with Erin again? I couldn’t predict the outcomes, but I thought I’d regret it if I didn’t give it one last go round.
The season started off like any other. Erin in center field, me in left, we picked up right where we left off a few months before. “Too good to be true!” That cliché will probably haunt me forever, now that I know the real meaning.
I was having fun again! My teammates and I got along wonderfully! I was a faster runner, though weaker in my upper body strength. Everything was in place, even my hitting, which had a habit of disappearing every once and awhile. Spring break came, only this time it didn’t bring it’s usual renewal of energy.
My love for softball ended the final Saturday of break. I remember being angry with myself for letting a run score because of a mental error. Three “coaches” yelled at me as I ran to the dugout when the half-inning ended. I threw my mitt in frustration, reeling that may have cost my team the game.
From that moment on, the head coach and a volunteer mother had it in for Erin and me. If I could explain why Erin came down with me, I would even though I don’t know, but all I can say is that it’s because we were best friends, who never left each other’s side.
Erin and I played less than 5 games together the rest of the season, most often taking turns playing. Two former all-conference and all-area honorable mentions riding the pine pony silently. Suddenly we were the bad guys. We could do nothing right; yet we didn’t play, complain, or ridicule others. We cheered and guided other players with no gratitude whatsoever. Losses became our fault, even though we hadn’t stepped foot on the field. Freshman and sophomores with no experience took our positions and made errors but continued starting.
The reasoning behind the whole move was that the coach wanted to try something new, only either way we weren’t winning. During a meeting, Erin was told that she wasn’t productive the lineup that’s why she wasn’t playing. That’s credible, except statistically Erin was the best hitter on the team. For me, it was because I wasn’t hitting tell ball well. At that exact point (half-way) in the season, I had 3 hits in 7 at-bats.
The softball part we could deal with, it was losing the friends that killed. 90% of the team turned on us, even the girl who’s mother had cancer, the same girl Erin and I spent hours with while her mother had her surgery and chemo, the same girl who I had played softball with since the fifth grade. That pain doesn’t go away easily.
During that nightmare of crying nights, unfinished homework, and minimal eating, I still had yet to make a college decision. That season helped make the right choice for me though. I turned down a handful of volleyball scholarships to various schools across the Midwest because I was afraid. I was afraid of losing my love for volleyball, losing my self-respect, and losing me again. I chose a college 600 miles away, praying that I didn’t regret not playing volleyball.
Three weeks before I was to leave for college I was getting ready to baby-sit for a few hours before I went to work at 11pm, when I got a phone call. It was my grandmother telling me that my 45 year-old uncle had died that morning, while his son Nick (my favorite cousin who was 18 like me) found him. After the year I had, I didn’t think I had tears left to cry. Somewhere deep inside I found them and once they started they didn’t stop for at least a week.
Regret immediately overcame me. Why did I choose to go to college 7 hours away? How would I be able to take care of my parents? What if this happened to them? I couldn’t bear it. My heart was broken for my cousin. He had to go to college too, knowing that he would never see his dad again and leaving his mom all alone. The thought alone was enough to tell my parents of my decision not go to college in Kentucky.
Although my parents reassured me everything would be fine and that I was in fact going since I had made the decision, I packed my bags and left everything I had ever known. Now I know that I made the right decision in going to Morehead and not to play volleyball. I had a wonderful year at school and can’t wait to return.
The scary thought is though, where would I be had all these events not transpired in my life that year? The person I am today (June 28, 2002) is nowhere near the girl I was then. I survived so many things from July of 2000 till August of 2001; I have probably worn out my nine lives. That was by far the hardest year of my life and to think that not one of my 13 surgeries occurred during that year is quite amazing in itself. Everything happens for a reason, we may not know why, but there is a purpose. I am living proof.