Taelyr C. Roberts

So I swore that I wasn’t going to be one of those annoying people on social media that we all become on occasion that post some form of a “New Year, New me” status and I still haven’t and I still won’t. (BTW this isn’t it either) The beginning of a new year however does  provide a unique opportunity to reflect and realize what your life is and isn’t. What it has become and to decide what exactly you wish for it to be.

Doing this reflection showed me a lot. There are so many things for which I have to be incredibly grateful, but it also showed me that I have matured quite a bit in some respects and part of that maturity has allowed me to come to peace with the aspects of life that I can not change. The biggest one at the moment is that my grandmother has Alzheimer’s (if you don’t know what that is, then click the word. I linked a description). That is my first time writing that and I still can’t bear to say it aloud because like most of the people in my family, but especially the women- I believed them to be indestructible  and that is simply not the case. Mortality and the finite nature of life in my opinion is not something to ever be fully understood, but to be respected, appreciated and accepted. On a similar note, one of my favorite aunts also had a heart attack. She was in the hospital for a few days and is now home, but with limitations for which she was definitely not prepared. I got a chance to finally see her over Thanksgiving break and she seemed so fragile, so broken. She is currently a shell of her former self. I can see it every time I look at her and that is something for which I was grossly unprepared.

Among other things for which I was grossly unprepared-college (but that is another story). I’m currently a college student and I am nearly finished, but with all that  is currently happening in the world, I could be afraid of not finishing school or flunking out (which was a very real possibility at one point) or not getting a job upon graduation, but my current worst fear and the nightmare that wakes me from my sleep some nights is that my grandmother, aunt or a number of my friends or family members could die and all I would get would be a phone call in the middle of the night from 1,811 miles away with possibly some of the worst news I could ever hear. That is the fear that clenches my gut and that is the fear that holds me back. Despite this, that is also the fear that pushes me forward, the fear that drives me to new limits and the motivation that no matter what happens, I give it all that I have because if I don’t then what was it all for? If my grandmother passes away before I cross that stage or maybe even worse forgets who I am and does not care when I cross that stage, then sure it will likely feel like the equivalent of being run over by an 18 wheeler or as if my heart is being ripped from my chest, but I will know that this path still has a purpose and that at one point she remembered my name and that I was her only granddaughter who she loved immensely. And that, I think is part of growing up-accepting that the concept of indestructibility is for children’s dreams and comics, not grandmothers and aunts. To know, that life is worth living and worth fighting for even after those you care about have finished their fight. To know that there is still a you even without their physical presence.

So, my 2014 will not be a series of resolutions and promises, but a commitment to a new life path and a growth that maybe surpasses my years, but a knowledge that life’s journey comes with many blessings, but that indestructibility is not one of them.