College Admissions Essay: The Year That Changed My Life

With tears running down my face in a sloppy manner I asked “Will I ever be able to have kids,” a question no sixth grade girl should ever have to ask.

When I was twelve I had a cyst that flipped my ovary around with its weight, the doctor said she may need to remove my entire ovary. Being a silly pre-teen at the time, with no formal sexual education class, I had no idea one ovary was all you needed. Since then I’ve been diagnosed with endometriosis and the threat of infertility has been all too real and overly mentioned by my doctors.

From the time I was very young on I made a plan of how my future needed to go I thought about it, strived for it, and longed for it every minute of the day. It consisted of all of the elements that represented
the classic dream. I would finish high school with fantastic grades, go to college, go to graduate school, get a nice reliable job, hopefully meet a man somewhere in the mix, get married and have a family of my own. I put all of my hopes into the future, for fear of never achieving a step and failing the collective path. The procedure seemed so clear in my head that I thought it had to be real, but with my doctor’s constant recommendations of how to handle my cysts and what to eat to allow my ovaries to work decently when I’m older, my stark list of future life events started becoming increasingly blurred.

I realized in that moment that no one is capable of planning for everything nor should anyone want to.
I started filling my agenda for the day instead of my entire life, and I began appreciating things not necessarily meant for the long term like reading an enjoyable book, or signing up for classes based on unique qualities instead of the stereotypical sense of learning.

Now instead of getting a job that sets me up for the predictable, stable future, I am aiming to please myself with a life full of new adventures in foreign places I could have never planned to touch. That is one of the reasons the idea of college excites me the most because I finally have a chance to break free from the bubble, and chase unique opportunities like studying abroad. I also finally have the chance to share my experiences, that are solely in my descriptor, with other people who may finally be able to understand me for it.

Because of something as terrible as an unplanned cyst, I began feeling capable of living in the present instead of reverting to whatever the imaginary better place would be in the future. Letting go of the pre-conceived ideas of how life should go was not easy, but through my medical setback. I discovered I cannot wait for the cookie cutter household and a man to help fill the gaps that determine my fate, instead self-reliance and an open mind for future and present events is all I
need.