Autobiography of Jillian Hannah

People tend to make plans for themselves.  It usually goes something like this: “When I grow up, I want to be fireman,” or “five years from now I would like to be graduated from college and starting a family.”  What differs between all us dreamers is the way we react when these plans fall through and we are forced to adjust.  Despite my emotional strength, I was one of those people who took a while to adjust.

I was a self-motivated athlete who did it all.  I was one of the only girls who would join the guys who played basketball at the park.  I climbed rock walls and real mountains, ran, and played every sport with a board or a ball.  This is why it was strange when I blacked out in aerobics class my sophomore year in high school.

Waking up in the nurse’s office was a horror story, and I didn’t remember anything that had happened.  The story has been told to me several times by people with many variations on the skill of exaggeration.

“You just started seizing and fell over!”

“It wasn’t a big deal, in fact most people didn’t even notice.”

“We thought you were going to die.”

The general consensus seems to be that first I had sat down on the gym floor, complaining that I couldn’t see.  My friends had thought I was joking, but they quickly realized that wasn’t the case when I went limp and collapsed.  They called the nurse and she took me out in a wheel chair.  In front of the whole class.  What a horror story.

I am the type of personality that firmly believes in personal space.  If you don’t break into my bubble, we can be friends!  But over the next few months I learned to adjust that attitude as classmates had to help carry me to the nurse every other day, and eventually doctors probed at me trying to figure out what was wrong with me.  This new mind set wasn’t the only thing that had to change about me.  When I was forced to drop out of high school a month or so later and take the GED route, I started to realize that my life wasn’t going to be average.  Thoughts like “I’m too smart to be a high school drop out!  I wanted to be valedictorian and graduate with my friends!” had to be expelled from my mind.

But soon I found myself writing off every opportunity I thought I would ever have as “impossible.”  I had to try really hard to get out of bed in the morning and sustain the idea that life had a purpose when I knew that by the end of the day I could likely be at another hospital or doctor’s office.  I hate doctors.  What a horror story.

It was a couple years into my sickness, with the doctors still clueless as to what was causing my seizures, when I decided to step back and reevaluate my life.  Doctors were trying to tell me that I might only have a few months or years to live, and rather than being bitter I decided to make the best of the time I was given, and even, if I could, prove the doctors wrong.

From that day forward I began living my life.  I actually consider myself very fortunate, because I have been given many opportunities that young people like me don’t usually get!  When you are trying to cram seventy-five or eighty years of life into each day, uncertain that you will have any more, it is crazy how many adventures you have, and even how many opportunities you open up for your self.  I came to realize religion’s impact on my life stronger than ever before.  I spent time with my family and found a love for them more profound than I had ever had previously.  Most prominently, I grew as a person because my perspective changed almost completely.  The petty concerns that would normally afflict a nineteen-year-old girl weren’t there anymore.  There was no: “oh my gosh!  Allison was totally talking behind my back!”  I only had time for the important things, so I really learned how to determine what is important.  One of those important things being showing the doctors who is boss.  Here I am, months after they said I would die, alive and “well” and having the time of my life.

The Flour Blizzard (Prompt #7)

Mom would be home soon from a long day of shopping at that place she goes every Monday.  What was it called?  Oh yeah, the groshy store; something like that.  But I was going to surprise her!  She would be so excited to come home and find dinner already cooked and ready to eat!  I knew she hated the macaroni and cheese out of the box, so I’d cook her the real stuff, the homemade stuff.  It’d be great.  I had made the box stuff before, so this can’t be that much harder right?

She had left the recipe book on the table, perfect!  I flipped quickly to the right page, the one with the big picture of perfect golden cheesy noodles.  My stomach growled and I grinned.

I began scampering around the kitchen quickly to find all the ingredients.  Every once in a while I would glance over at the garage door, begging it not to make a noise and open up to reveal my mom.  If she got home before I finished, the surprise would be ruined!

There was only one more ingredient to be retrieved: flour.  I knew where it was, but unfortunately it was in the highest cabinet in the kitchen.  Its height mocked me; I had always been a short child.  But I wasn’t deterred!  I pulled a chair from the kitchen table up next to the cabinet and slid the sliding door open.  Stretching as far as I could, I reached the flour bucket and pulled it forward.  Grabbing it by the lid I pulled it victoriously out of the cabinet.

Horrified I looked over at the garage door, for I could hear my mom’s van pulling into the garage.  Just as I turned to curse her untimely return, I learned a very valuable lesson.  Holding containers by their lid is not the most secure way to go about things.  In slow motion the rubber lid lost its grip on the container.   My mom entered the room to find that it had snowed cooking ingredients all over her spotless kitchen.  She gaped at her daughter, who was standing an a chair holding a lid and looking terrified.

My little sister, who had come running to see what happened, pointed at me and said, “she did it!”  As if it wasn’t obvious.  I was the only thing not covered in white.  I closed my eyes and swore that I would never cook again.

Mom Was a Teenager Once (Prompt #5)

It’s earlier than expected!  My flight wasn’t supposed to get in for another hour.  I called Jenny first.  “Jenny!  I’m back in town for spring break!”

Jenny, my cousin, screamed on the other end of the line.  “I’ll be there in ten minutes!” she said excitedly, and hung up on me.  I laughed and sat down in one of the terminal chairs.  Even their uncomfortable hardness couldn’t keep my mind off of all the exciting things we were going to do over the next week.  Of course, in the back of my mind there was always the thought of why I had really come home, and that was to break up with my boyfriend.  People don’t really do that over the phone, at least not decent people.  That was my opinion.  But it was time for the relationship to end, so I figured it would go smooth enough, and Jenny and I could get back to painting the town.

Soon enough Jenny had picked me up and we went out to lunch.  We took our time, giggling as we caught each other up on our lives.  It was once I got home that I realized spring break was going to blow.

When I walked in, my mom dropped the dishes she was washing and rushed up to me.  “Ryan is in the living room.  He’s been sitting there for forty-five minutes just dying to see you.”  This was before the days of cell phones, so she had had no way of getting in touch with me to tell me to come home.

I sighed.  That certainly wasn’t good.  I walked into the living room, ready to burst his bubble.

“Laura!” he said, jumping up.

“Hey, Ryan,” I said, faking a half-smile.

He knew at once what was coming.  “Let’s go talk.”

I followed him outside and we talked in his car for like ten minutes.  Way too short for a conversation like that, right?  I told him I wasn’t feeling it anymore, to which he replied, “You have great timing.”  I asked him what he meant but he just shook his head.  After an awkward goodbye I got out of the car and went back inside, immediately calling Jenny.

“Hey, Jen,” I said.  “So, I just broke up with Ryan.”

On her end Jenny was silent for a moment, before saying, “You didn’t.  He was going to propose to you tonight!”

Like I said, spring break pretty much blew after that realization hit me like a ton of bricks.  But even to this day, I still haven’t mustered up enough emotion to actually feel all that bad.  He and I are both happily married to different people now, so we can say all is well and leave it at that!  And hey, it’s a great story to tell my dating age kids.

Observations of a Seemingly Simple Building

Walk in and it's like you get hit with a ton of bricks.  The first time I was at the LDS Institute of Religion on campus at ASU it was like I had set foot on an alien planet.  Although, I suppose most of us feel like an outsider when we first find ourselves thrown into a new place.

This was different from any building I had ever been in on campus.  There were people buzzing around like happy bees in every room you enter.  I found myself sitting down on a balcony that overlooked the main entrance hall just to catch my breath.

At first all my senses could take in were the visual cues that surrounded me.  There were many alcove-like places in the building where there were chairs and benches to sit.  These seemed slightly ironic in my opinion, as it seemed that the fluctuation of people who populated the building at any given time seemed to have too much energy to sit.  The decorations consisted of religious paintings that explained the purpose of the building, and lots of plants to give the place a very comforting and welcoming feel.

I noticed quickly that the building had an air of peacefulness about it that was strangely out of place at first. How, with so much commotion present, could a building be peaceful?  So I stopped focusing on the visual so much and began to listen.  As a group of girls approached, ascending the stairs directly below me, I honed in on their conversation.

"I'm engaged!" one exclaimed, and the others, obviously friends of the girl, began to giggle.

The conversation continued, full of lighthearted comments, and eventually led to the declaration from another girl in the group: "I'm pregnant!"  Following this she was congratulated and a friend proclaimed that the pregnant girl was so lucky to have an amazing husband like Andrew, and the group was on their way.

I walked back down stairs to the main entrance area and was surrounded by many more joyful conversations such as this one.  Boys commented on "the great game Johnny played the other night" and I even witnessed a blushing brunette getting asked on a date by a handsome boy she had probably had her eye on for weeks.  As I walked past an open set of double doors I saw a gym where a group of boys were playing basketball.  I proceeded down a maze of hallways, each lined with doors each pouring light out of the door frames.  Once I had made a full circle through the building, passing a game room filled with social people with big smiles, I paused.  Not once while I was here did I feel the weight of my worries.  Nobody around me was frowning.  What was it that made everyone here so giddy?

I am now a regular visitor of this place, and I am becoming more and more convinced that it is not only the building that makes the people happy, but the happy people that make the building such an enjoyable, peaceful place to explore.

Describing an Individual

There is a reason she is my best friend.  There are several actually.  She is the epitome of friendship, if it could be packaged in the form of a person.  A phone call, a text, a cry for attention, none are ever wasted on her.  With an original and honest voice she will answer any questions or statements with a cheerful and sincere reassurance that she is on your side.

Boys love her.  She has beautiful long hair that changes colors every other week, based on her mood.  When something changes about her life, so does her hair dye preference.  She is always wearing a charm bracelet or necklace that holds a charm that represents her or something that is close to her heart.  I am proud to say that she has passed that tradition on to me, starting me off about a year ago with a charm bracelet she gave me.

If I had to pick a place that I predicted that she spends most of her time at, I would die trying.  It's as simple as that.  She is rarely holding still, and will paint the world with her colors before she leaves it.  Every new experience is hers for the taking, and she would never dream of passing anything up.  Climb a mountain and she will be waiting at the top to help you up.  Go to a recording studio to record a demo and start your musical career and she will have populated the walls with her albums.  This is her way: always busy, never disappointed.

With a personality like this, you would assume that she has left everyone she knows in the dust; perhaps she won't have meant to, but it would have happened naturally.  But this is not the case.  She collects friends along the way as if they were her most precious possessions, and no relationship is a light matter in her brown, thoughtful eyes.  Quirky as ever, yet inspirational in every way, this is my friend Desirae.