These days, I’m still a lot like I was when I was little. I’m just a lot older and wiser. I still enjoy learning new things, playing rough, and being outside. I also stopped wearing skirts and dresses when I was in elementary school, and have since stuck to wearing jeans, T-shirts, and camo hoodies everyday. My mom gave up on making me a girly-girl a long time ago. Hell, she gave up on trying to force me to dress in formal clothes for formal occasions. In my mind, people like me or they don’t, and I couldn’t care less about what people think about me attending a wedding in jeans and a T-shirt.

Everyday, I’m reminded about all that I went through as a newborn. My chest is seared in faded scars from my open heart surgery I had roughly 18 years ago. My main heart surgery scar goes from the base of my neck where my collar bone splits, all the way down to my belly where I have a few extra dimples just above my belly button. There are also a few welts around my torso where tubes and wires once were, and a small scar on my right wrist where a wire was placed to monitor my pulse.

I don’t like showing off my scars by wearing bikinis at the beach or low-necked shirts. I’m not ashamed by them at all. In fact, I’m very proud of those scars. I just don’t like it when people point them out to ask what happened, because most of the time, people just don’t understand.

Instead, I only show off scars I can easily explain, such as the large white scratches on both of my forearms I gained after crashing my dirtbike into shale gravel, or the scar on my cheek I got from a much earlier (but unknown) childhood injury.

In general, I just don’t like showing myself off though. While most girls my age and younger spend years trying to make themselves look like Instagram models in real life, by putting on ten pounds of makeup everyday, dying their hair, and buying expensive clothing, I literally try to blend into my natural surroundings by wearing camo hoodies and worn blue jeans, and refusing to wear makeup or style my long, golden brown hair. While camo is very useful for hunting, it also helps TSA agents make jokes about being unable to see me while I walk through airport security. That is something my mom refuses to let me forget.

Despite my appearance, I still take very good care of myself. I like being very clean so I don’t get sick as often or scare people away by being gross. My mom thinks that our water bill is so high because I take very long hot showers every night. I can’t deny it, just like I can’t deny the fact that I eat roughly $400 worth in groceries every month. We can all just be glad that my mom can afford it thanks to her real estate career she’s worked so hard to grow. 20 years ago, my mom had no AC and had to jump start her rusty car every time before she drove it. Now, she can afford a large house for us in a pretentious suburb a mile away from Colorado’s front range foothills, as well as our impressive food and water bills.

I enjoy living by the foothills. They inspire my art, as well as feed my sense of adventure. But most of all, they remind me, like the scars on my body, of God's existence. I've spent my whole life trying to rationalize the miracles I've experienced, and have tried to use philosophy and science to debunk God's existence. But every time I think I've jumped on the train that will take me to atheism, or some other belief besides Christianity, I've always been brought right back to God. Most people don't understand how I could be so stubborn and resistant, and to be honest, I don't get it either. My skepticism is embarrassing sometimes, but at the same time, I think it's good I'm not afraid to admit it, and it's always healthy to be skeptical. Just as long as one doesn't take that skepticism to the level of a flat earther. 

I'm just glad that God is patient and merciful. Otherwise, God would've let me die long before I had a chance to live. I should've died numerous times throughout my life, yet I'm still here, unscathed considering the stuff I've been through. I don't know why God has kept me around while allowing so many others to die. Everyday on the online Cystic Fibrosis message board, there is a death or someone pleading for help. Everyday, kids much younger than me die from CF while on the lung transplant list. Everyday, someone asks for help on the message board, explaining that they are close to death and getting desperate. Everyday, I am reminded just how inexplicably blessed I am, and cannot do much except for praise God and write about my experiences like I'm doing now. 

I do suffer from a lot of survivor's guilt, even though I know I've got no real control over my health or the health of others. I didn't ask for Cystic Fibrosis, and to be honest, I didn't ask for great health either. Yet, I am grateful everyday to be alive and as well as I am, and hardly ever take a day for granted. Sure, I have my days, weeks, and even months where I'm feeling down and anxious, but that's just a part of life. I also go through seasons of doubt and questioning. Everyday, it seems, I come up with another increasingly difficult question for God. But, from experience, I don't ask for God to present me with anymore challenges to answer my questions. I've been down that road too many times, and know how it ends. This isn't to say I regret those past prayers that have led to rather scary episodes, but now I've learned that it's ok to admit that I don't know the answer to every question, and I should just be grateful for the knowledge that I have now.