My Journey In My Life

As I crouch, hardly breathing, in a barrel much too small for me to be in, I wonder how on earth I got into this mess. The ancient ship creaks and rocks as a sinking feeling grows in my stomach. It was a dare by my so-called friends for me to sneak onto the museum attraction on the last day it was in town, simply to “have a little fun” and to see where the museum kept the huge boat. I was all for it – I needed some adventure in my life. Unfortunately, I seem to have stumbled on something a little bigger than a display.

My childhood was a happy one, for a moment at least. The first seven years of my life had gone by in a flash living in Bear, Delaware. I don’t know if I had so much fun that somehow, I transported myself into the future. The next thing I knew my family along with the new addition of my younger brother Ethan was moving to Powder Springs, Georgia. This tendency to stop and look at my existence at specific points in my life continued through 6th grade with the family moving again to Dallas, Georgia. Fast forward a few years after 8th grade my family and I moved for the last time to West Chester, Pennsylvania. I have moved a lot and it caused a lot of stress and uncertainty but I don’t regret it for a second, because from this constantly winding journey I learned one important lesson. There are challenges and obstacles everywhere you go but your reaction to the situation will decide how successful you will be in life.

Before I was born, my parents went to Bryce Canyon on a vacation. They decided that they really liked the name Bryce. And so, on September 3rd, 2002, Ryan and I were born in the Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan. My parents had only wanted three kids, but they ended up with five. First, they had one kid, my sister Sierra, who is now 17 years old, and almost 18. Then my parents wanted another kid, and ended up with twins, my brother Nate and my other sister Autumn. My mom and dad decided that they could handle one more kid, but they got another set of twins, my brother Ryan and me. And so, Sierra, Autumn, Nate, Ryan, and I made up the 5 chaotic kids in the Brown family. My parents named me after Bryce

I was shocked. I had never experienced something this horrific. I began to think that our life as a family would be over, due to the stress, heartbreak, and sadness our family would go through in the years to come. I went online and searched spinal defect and regretfully clicked on the images, I began to ball in the waiting room. I ran straight passed my dad and went to the restroom. I stood there looking at myself in the mirror for a while. I than began to think about how my mom would feel in this situation if I was crying she must have wanted to die. I jolted out the restroom and asked my dad what room my mom was in. He told me and I began to run towards the room, many of the nurses told me to stop running, but I ignored all of them. While

“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanishes away.” James chapter 4 and verse 14. One of my favorite bible verses. Life is short, really short, and so many people take it for granted, I know I use to. Think of life like a puzzle, as you grow up, you keep adding pieces that make up who you are. When I got the question “What Am I Becoming?” I honestly had so much to write about but no idea how to write it. I know what I want to be but who I am becoming is the real question. So let me start at the very beginning.

When a child is born, its family raises it in hope for him to become successful. Inevitably time remains slow, yet it is constant. Thanks be to God that we wake up every morning knowing that we can rely on its consistency to creep on us as children grow older. A mother’s dream, with three children, is for the last child to live happily and a father’s is for his children to be cautious of the threats the world has within. But as a result of the values and characteristic that the child has developed, he chose his own path in life. He chose to become a pilot. When he reached high school, he learned that the best way to earn your career is to obtain a degree that certifies you in your profession. That is when he decided to attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. There he wants to major in Aeronautical Science and someday earn his way to his own 747.

My heart was beating so fast. My hands were all sweaty and I couldn’t move. I was about to go on stage with my friends. There was about a million things that was going through my mind. Me and my friends were standing backstage waiting for the people in the back to start the music. The lights were so bright, it was like looking at the sun. The floor was so shiny you could see it glomming. Me and my friends were practicing the dance before we went on, so none of us would mess up. It was my first show and I was really nervous. We were dancing at the biggest college that I have ever seen in my life. I would have been really scared dancing by myself, but since I was with my friends I would be fine. The lights went off. It was so dark I couldn't see a thing. This was about to change everything.

My journey has been in many ways an attempt at finding myself and my place in life. Immediately after graduating High School I joined the National Guard. Partially because I felt compelled to do what I could after 9/11, but also because I had no direction in career or life. Truthfully, I just wanted to get as far away from my normal every day as possible.

Sitting down on the porch with my Honduran coffee in hand, waves of nostalgia washed over me. Staring into my coffee, flashbacks ran through my head. The old, yellow school bus rocked back and forth over the worn, dirt path on its way to the orphanage that would be my home for the next week. The scolding Central American sun beat down on the bus as I began to question why I chose to spend my service requirement here. I tried to imagine the following week which would be internet-less, family-less, and aircondition-less. After a two-hour bus ride, my team of 20 people and I arrived at Orphanage Emmanuel. Orientation and assignments filled the following hours until we all climbed onto our plastic mattresses and attempted to get some sleep.

Who am I? What do I tell people when I am asked this question? Do I even know the answer? It has taken many years for me to be able to answer this question. All of my life experiences have led me to the road I am on today, and I would never give them back.

My life started in a town called Troy in northern Ohio, on January the 30th in the year 1999 I was born in Miami Valley hospital. Having lived in Ohio for four years my parents decided that they are going to take a leap of faith and move down south to Oxford North Carolina. This decision changed a lot of things around in my life, no longer could we pile into the car and go to grandma’s house, or drive to a Walmart that was less than 5 miles away. We now lived in the “country” where everybody knows everyone and secrets spread faster than a wild fire. Growing up school was never a real challenge for me, I began elementary school at Stovall Shaw Elementary in Stovall North Carolina. Thankfully classes for me were never too challenging I was always able to do more than just get by. During my second grade year I met the teacher that not only taught me the course content, but also gave me life and moral lessons that every young child should be told. Mrs. Lyons or as I like to call her “MeMa”, played a significant role in the person I am today. I’ll never forget the day we were in class working on some math equations, and the way our class was set up there were two different sections of class. One for more advanced students and another for students who maybe needed a little more help. So, with that being said she put two different math equations on the board one more difficult than the other to account for the more advanced children in the class. I subconsciously begin to work on

The past three years of my life feel like the only part of my life where I have truly lived. The massive majority of my most cherished memories and greatest challenges have taken place within the last few years. On December 26th 2015 my mom surprised me with a intro flight at my local flight school as a Christmas present; it was a simple flight up and down the Miami coastline at five hundred feet right as the sun was setting, and I was hooked the instant my instructor Rudy gave me the yoke. Seeing the city lights ignite the coast as we calmly trekked over downtown Miami was an image that incited a sense of wonder and longing in me that I had never experienced before. That short one hour flight went by in an instant, and before I knew it I was back one week later to begin my journey to where I am today. Over the course of two and one half months I balanced sophomore year of highschool with my private pilot training, finishing two weeks after my seventeenth birthday on March 31st. The next week I started my instrument and breezed through it in two months, and I quickly moved onto my commercial. The biggest obstacle of my commercial training was Time. By the time I was done with my instrument and ready to knock out my next stage of training, I learned that one needed to be eighteen in order to take the checkride. This happened to work out nicely, as it allowed me to focus more on school and enjoying my accomplishments with some relaxing cross-countries to build time.

As a very small child I don’t remember too much, but the things that I do remember were seen through a child’s eyes that has made me the person that I am today and I will always have those memory’s with me until my last breath on this earth. In this essay I intend to show how my childhood and adult life to this point has influenced my life, my journey. By utilizing the adult development theories from this class I also intend on showing how they relate to my Life experiences and where I am today as an Adult student.

All I could think of sitting at my desk at work was about the conversation me and my husband had the night before. I sat there staring at my computer screen wondering if it was the right thing to do, or was I just wasting my time on a hope long forgotten. The hours slowly ticked by, and everything I was working on with my customers and their loans were a blur. I couldn’t get that thought out of my head. It was eating away at me. This is something that I have wanted for a long time. I put it on hold for so long because I wanted to be the best wife and mother I could be. That’s just the thing though I thought. My wants, dreams, ambitions had all gone on hold for 10 years. Always there to support everyone else with theirs and never going

My crew was about to make history. Legs in my chest, ankles in my thighs, head against the wall... I was ready for this. The words, “Everyone, out!” overwhelmed me. I had made my way down a thick rope, and saw the vast amount of people awaiting me. All the citizens were hushed asleep blind to what was to come. Nonchalantly, I took my recently sharpened spear out of my back pocket. It was time, and our crew made our first move. The whole scene was all a blur to me; sharp cries and agonizing grunts. We had made a victory and sailed off from Troy back home.