Bad News in the Mail

So I thought that things in my life was going pretty well. I have the best friends and family in the world and a pretty awesome boyfriend. I get to spend almost everyday doing things that I love to do like hanging out with friends or sleeping until the afternoon, listening to music and just doing musical and theatrical things. I'm a new (?) college student, it's my second term. My life wasn't filled with too much worry, the thing that I most worried about was finding a job or hoping that my best friend wasn't mad at me for some insensitive thing that I said or wondering what some random hot guy thought of me. That was until I got a letter.

The letter said that I might be a sick girl. I hardly got through the letter. I got to where it said what I might be sick with and I froze. I stood in my kitchen with the smile that I had on my face only seconds before faded. I was shocked. I never thought that something like that could happen to me. I stood there staring at the letter tears filling my eye. My adopted mom asked me a question and I hardly answered her. I gave her one of those answers that really rude kids give their parents. And she took the letter and read it to see why I had just stopped functioning. I mean she's used to me being silly and laughing and just being a really exuberant child. I mean I'm not like those weird perfect super annoying sunny kids that you see on t.v. but I'm a typically happy person as many of my friends know.

She read the letter and she looked at me and told me that it was going to be OK, that maybe the tests were wrong, that it had even said right there in the letter that it could be wrong. But my only thought was "No, it can't be wrong. It's probably right. I mean things like this happen to people all the time and just because I thought that it could never happen to me, it still has." This all sounded like one sentence with no breaks in it at all. Then my second thought pattern was "No, Mom's probably right. The test results were just wrong, I mean I'd had that shot and they're still not sure what it all does so it's probably just that. I mean come on, this doesn't really happen to people." It took me a few seconds for my brain to get traction so that i could start talking again. I wiped away the tears that had formed in my eyes and I smiled and said all the things to let Mom know that I really wasn't freaking out. That it was just a momentary lapse in something that had caused me to go silent. I took the letter from her and I went to my room. I sat on my bed and I looked around the room that I share with my best friend who is like a sister. I looked to the closet where most of my stuff was and I thought how it would suck for her to have to deal with all my stuff. Then I told myself that even if I was sick that it wouldn't be so bad as to kill me. I let myself cry for a while, and then I told myself that I couldn't just sit there and cry that I had to know what was going on. So I got on the computer and I researched what it is that might be making me sick.

I called my Momma because I'd really needed to be cheered up. I tried to not tell her about the letter. I didn't know how she would react: would she be upset with me, would she cry? The conversation went on and somewhere my mind made itself up and my mouth complied and they told my mom. And her reaction set off a whole new set of tears. I didn't know what to say to her. Luckily the conversation ended soon because I really didn't want her to know that I was crying.

But the whole reason for this is not to get people to feel bad for me. It's to say that when you get news like this don't let it take over, be proactive research what it is so that you can prepare yourself. But getting this letter didn't only scare the living shit out of me it made me think of what I wanted out of life. I always wanted kids but if I am sick I don't think having my own kids will work so I will try to adopt or be a foster parent. I want to be known for the good that I do. I know how cliche, you find out you're sick and all of a sudden you want to do good and blah blah blah, but that didn't change for me. I always wanted to adopt or foster a child. I'd made it a mission to change the life of at least one child that is not my own before I die. The only thing that my "sick letter" did for me was set this all in stone for me. Before it was always "I'm gonna try to do this," after I got that letter it's become "I will do this no matter what it takes."