The 1,895 words

I know i havent posted much... Sorry! But for an English assignment I had to write an autobiography and put it to music... Here is it and i really hope you like it! : ) Eldest teen!

Everyone grows from experience. When I looked back into my past, I realized how much I have grown in life experiences with every obstacle I have faced.  Im glad I was able to put these experiences to song because nothing can explain emotions better than that of a musical tune. 

   December 21, 1998 at 12:30 am, I was born a very happy, very healthy baby girl.  I was 8 pounds and 13 ounces.  I had to wait an hour before I could be held or get fed because the doctor had to stitch up my mom for a while. I was always very content, happy, hardly ever cried, and just happy to be! This was a big thing in my family because my mom had several miscarriages late in her pregnancies and I was the first to make it. This was also significant because its the start of my journey. I chose the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy because Im a Christmas baby, and also because the nutcracker has always seemed special to me.  My family is even more special to me than anything, but it wouldn’t have been the family I have without the people in it. 

After a year and a half my parents felt that they should have another child to bring into this world. After nine months of pregnancy the new addition came into our lives. May second 2001, Madison my little sister, was born. She wasn't breathing,  and was turning hues. The doctors took her and bagged her to help her breathe and get oxygen.  They examined her for 6 1/2 hours, and finally came back and told my parents that she would have to have heart surgery in a week, so her heart could grow a bit. I was only 2 1/2 years old. She was transferred to Fairfax hospital, and my parents came home without a baby. They would spend every waking minute up at the hospital, living at the Ronald McDonald House for the 10 weeks in which they would be there.  Madison had subsequent surgeries those ten weeks, and since children couldn't be in the PICU, I stayed with friends for awhile, but the days kept adding up.  I finally went and stayed with grandma and grandpa for 3 weeks, which left a big whole where my heart was supposed to be.  I chose Regina Spektor’s song Blue Lips because thats was the color Madison was when she was born. Also Regina talks about stumbling into faith and talking to god, and how the characters imagination came to reality and “began to breath”. 

When I stayed with friends for a week, I stayed with my best friend Kayleigh. I had known her since I was nearly one. She was stubborn, annoying, rude, sassy, bossy, and my best friend. She loved to read and taught me that books are more important than Barby dolls. She showed me the passion of reading, how to drown yourself in parchment. I knew her more as the characters in her books than anything else.   Two years later my family moved 4 hours away from where she lived. We planned to get together every so often on weekends, and when we did we would stay up all night reading books. When we were about 8 or 9 she had brought a new book and told me it was amazing that we should read it. We built our little fort out of blankets (as we always did) and read back and forth till 5 in the morning. In the daylight hours we acted like the characters of our favorite books. We invented our own code and wrote letters to each other in our new language.  We did this for 6 years. 6 years filled with wonder, excitement, tears, friendship and love. It  was the most fun and memorable way to spend our time together.  Two best friends I have loved since I was a child was Woody and Buz. In the movie toy story they sing You’ve Got a Friend in Me and it sums up me and Kayleigh's relationship perfectly. 

One day in the year 2005 my mom got an invitation inviting us to come to Hawaii and attend the wedding of my aunt and uncle. There were pros and cons to this visit. Pros are that we would be going to hawaii. Cons were that we would be seeing the “mean uncle.”  No one in my intermediate family likes my uncle Aaron.  

A couple days before the date of the marriage, we flew to hawaii and checked into our hotel. We were on the island Oahu the same island with the capital Honolulu. The marriage reception was beautiful, right next to the beach. I also caught the bouquet which was a plus for me. During the rest of the trip we had a blast surfing and swimming in the hectic ocean. We also went to a pineapple field and saw the weird process of pineapples. I unfortunately did not get the chance of feeding fish pb&j, but it was okay. It was a Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride, as Jump5 explains it. 

Once we returned home, we got right back in the everyday mix of things. November 2007 my family applied for an adoption for a boy. Sometimes you can wait years to get to adopt a child. Luckily for us we got a reply that following February. The thing was, it wasn't a boy. It was a girl, and she would be born around March. March past, and April started. My mother was getting impatient, so she packed our bags and we drove up to our grandparents house in Mason Ohio, so we could be closer to the birthmother who lived in Dayton Ohio. We waited for 3 weeks and finally, at 5 am on April 29th we got a call saying that the birth moms water broke and the baby was coming. According to the contract we signed, we were not allowed to take the newborn until three days after the birth. The birth mom insisted that she breastfed the baby, and we were really hesitant about this. What if she became attached and what if our precious little girl was taken from us? But on May second (Madison’s birthday) we got little Nadia. 

I didn’t know what song would be appropriate for this, because there were so many emotions going into this experience. I finally picked one of Sondre Lerche’s songs because the feelings and emotions that I felt then, I can also feel in this song. 

In 2009 we moved to Atlanta Georgia. Let me try and sum Georgia in a couple words. Hot, icky, southern, pretty, and humid, and rainy. It was terrible to play outside, and too hot to even swim the pools water boiled like a big blob of lava. 

When its not hot its raining. Thunderstorms and massive rain drops fell from the heavens.  So we spent our time inside reading, watching movies, and sleeping.  Jack Johnson's song Banana Pancakes sums it up perfectly.  “There aint no need to go outside...Pretend like theres no world outside... The telephone is singing ringing theres no need to pick it up.” Johnson sang. 

A normal day came my way, we were driving down the highway and of course the unexpected happened.  The highway was backed up, and so we slowed down and sat there. Suddenly we got hit from behind and driven into the cars in front of us. 

When we looked at the damage, the whole left side of our car was severely damaged. The 4 cars in front of us had the rears of their cars mashed up and shoved to the drivers seat. Thankfully no one in the accident was badly hurt, just a few bruises. But the horror of it was still in our minds. The scare, the fear, and the tears were more than enough for my sisters and mother. My dad was not there, he was out of town working.  I couldn’t control my shaking hands as they tried to dial a friends number for help. When we finally got home, I curled up in a ball and my imagination went wild with fear of the ‘what ifs’. The song Same Mistake has the lyrics: “My mind is muddy but my heart is heavy. Does it show?” 

I was scared, but we were okay. When my dad got home the next friday night, he was so glad to see us all and well. 

My dad was a contractor and would travel the US backing up companies servers. He would leave early monday morning and come home late friday night. This same routine went on for three years. This was really hard on me and my three little sisters. Finally last year in January my dad got a job offer in Denver Colorado and it will be a non-traveling job. We packed up and moved in March. Now he leaves early Monday morning, comes home monday evening. We see him every day now and we don't have to rush down the stairs and out the door just so we can wave good bye, just to wait five more days to see him again. He had a thousand faces, like Regina's song says. A work face, sad face, joyous face, distressed face, loving face. He was my dad and I was glad he was back. 

He was able to do more with us. 

To get to the beautiful rockies we had to drive across the country, 1,400 miles, 21 hours and 56 minutes. Knowing that being in the car for 20 hours together, I decided to take it upon myself to find some detours. Not to brag but I think I did a pretty good job. We went to the Parthenon replica in Nashville Tennessee, where we saw the massive building that Tennesseans built for a fair. It was very interesting and beautiful.  We also went and saw the Gateway Arch in St. Louis Missouri.  The long road trip did a killer on me, especially the never ending Kansas roads. The saying should go: all roads and tornadoes lead to Kansas. 

This would not be our only traveling that year. Little did I know at the time that it was not the longest trip that I would have in my lifetime. 

My mom and dad really wanted to take me and my sisters to Europe. They had been to Spain and Greece, and France. They would paint pictures for us of foreign countries with their words of excitement. The desire grew and grew,  and sure enough I was able to get there. We spent 24 hours of traveling the first day, and then finally got to Paris. We went from Paris France to Geneva Switzerland and then to Rome Italy.  From there we trained to Bezier, located at the very south of France. We stayed there for 2 1/2 weeks, which were spent at the beach, markets, and our little kitchen where we would eat french bread and Nutella. 

So many memories were made and I hope to hold on to them for ever and ever. 

In the song strawberry swing the lyrics say “Every moment was so precious... Its such a perfect day.” 

Life has thrown many challenges at me. Good and bad. I have been able to grow and learn who I am through things that I have done. The 1,895 words I used to write a short autobiography helped me remember what I love in life, and now I want to be able to recreate those memories over and over again so I can never forget. 

                    Works Cited

Blunt, James. “Same Mistake.” 2007. Alternative Folk.

Coldplay. “Strawberry Swing.” 2008. Alternative Rock. 

Jump5. “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride (pop version)” 2006. Pop.

Johnson, Jack.  “Banana Pancakes.”  2005.  Acoustic/Folk.

Killers. “Joy Ride.” 2008. Rock. 

Lerche, Sondre. “Dan and Marie Picking Hum.”  2007. Indie/Rock.

Newman, Randy. “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” 1996.  Pop.

Tchaikovsky. Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” 2011. Ballet.

Spector, Regina. “Blue Lips.” 2009. Pop/Indie.

Spector, Regina. “Man of a Thousand Faces.” 2009. Indie/Pop.