Then and Now

   It has been roughly ten years since I had my last surgery and in my mind it was yesterday. I guess it's one of those things that stay forever fresh in your mind. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I have had over a dozen surgeries. I still see myself laying on the operating table while nurses hook me up to the machines. I close my eyes, and I can still smell the sterilized room, I see half a dozen people in aqua-green scrubs and masks walking around me, I hear my very cute anesthesiologist telling me to count down from 100 to 1 ( FYI I got to 98). Then I remember waking up in recovery and asking for my mom (she is always the first person I ask for after all my surgeries). 

As a child, I thought it was 'normal' for kids to spend so much time at doctors’ offices and having all sorts of tests done. In my mind, my five-year-old mind, all that I thought was normal, I never questioned it because I believed that every other kid had the same experiences that I did. But as I got older, I realized the reality of things; I realized my 'normal' was just that, mine and mine alone. It was with that realization that I went through a denial of sorts, I didn't want my normal because I didn't want kids to make fun of me, I didn't want to be an easy target. I wanted to be like all the other children...I wanted to have friends. Many times I would close my bedroom door and fall asleep crying because I had a bad day at school, or I would pray to God to make me beautiful because I didn't think I was pretty. At one point, I even thought that one day I would wake up and my face would magically be symmetrical, and I would not have NF; I figured it was all a nightmare, but then I would wake-up, and my nightmare would be my reality.

 I was not very nice to myself when I was a little, I constantly put myself down because I believed what my peers in school said, I unknowingly ostracized myself from everyone and everything.

-But then, something in me changed, and I stopped putting myself down, I didn't let the words of others affect me; and if the name calling and the bullying did affect me, I didn't give my tormentors that satisfaction of seeing me shed a single tear. Slowly I blossomed into the person I am today, I learned to let go and not to care of the ignorance of others. I learned to enjoy and welcome the angels that enter my life, and trust me, the friends I do have are the best friends any girl could ask for. They were worth the wait!!!! It took me a few years, but I have finally accepted who I am. I learned to love myself, and unlike seven-year-old Angela, 25-year-old Angela sure thinks she is not just pretty, but BEAUTIFUL!!! 

Life for me has not always been easy, I've had a few stumbles, but I have learned to dust myself off, stand right back up again and walk with my head held high. 

Words do hurt, I am not going to lie, but I choose how those words affect me and decide to let them bounce right off. I decide to live my life for ME, and no one is going to push me down because I am stronger I  am in control, It's my life !!