2009…I was in high school. A junior in high school! I was 16 years old, what a critical time. The fun #10YearChallenge that is going around social media really got me thinking…what was Angelina like 10 years ago?
As you can see I was your typical cool girl…Okay, 16-year-old Angelina was a bit of a dork. I was extremely self-conscious. There is a lot going on in a 16-year-old girl’s life. I was learning to drive, I was dating err uhh hoping to date, and I was starting Adaptive Amputees!
Driving
My parents were adamant that I would not be using hand-controls. They wanted me to learn how to drive a car using pedals because that way I could drive a rental or a friend’s car, and not be limited to my adaptive car.
I learned to drive in a maroon Mazda 626! It was my mom’s car and she handed it down to me & my sister – to share… Two teenage girls expected to share one car! It broke down here and there, and my sister and I were not the best care-takers of it. But I had a lot of fun having a set of wheels.
I learned to drive in a cemetery because as my mom liked to joke, “You can’t kill anyone here”!
I learned to drive with both feet. Yep, you read that right! I still get scolded to this day by people who find out how I drive. I hit the gas with my (fake) right foot, and the brake with my (real) left foot.
I have driven big trucks, little cars, and even learned how to drive stick! I was not so great at stick, but I gave it a shot.
Dating
I didn’t date a whole lot in high school. I really wasn’t ready. I was very naive for my age I guess. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but it sure felt strange when my friends had boys on their faces and I was more interested in being outside and riding horses. I did have crushes and even got a boyfriend my sophomore year. I was ready for that relationship where you see each other between classes and maybe sit by each other at lunch. I got dumped 2 weeks later because we were “acting like friends”. I thought I was going to die during my first ever break-up. He came up to my locker after school and gave me the friends line…while the whole baseball team was standing behind him waiting to go to practice. I was mortified. What was he expecting from me?! I believe I had allowed him to hold my hand once haha. I was clearly not ready for a high school romance.
I somehow managed to survive this break-up and held off dating until my senior year! We had as serious a relationship as high school seniors can have. I went away to college and we broke things off…well I did. Yeah, I caused someone else heartbreak. It is not easy being on that side of the breakup either!
Click here to read about Life as a Female Amputee!
Adaptive Amputees got it’s start
I think a major reason I wasn’t the hot, popular girl in high school was my self-consciousness. I was so in my head about what others thought about my leg. If i’d get a stare I’d glare back at them and ask what they were looking at. A real recipe for popularity…I wished more people weren’t shocked by the fact that I was missing a leg. I also wished that I knew just one person who was living life as an amputee. I decided I needed to create this understanding between amputees and those kids that gawked at my missing leg. I wanted to make a difference. I decided to start with kids younger than me because I was not super comfortable talking about my disability with other teenagers. I started giving motivational talks at grade schools around St. Louis. I wanted to stop bullying for those kids who were different. I wanted the bullies to understand where us “different” kids were coming from. I talked about adoption, living life disabled, and what it was that I was capable of! They loved it! I ended up talking at my own high school and my own classmates who I walked the hall with daily were so supportive. It seemed like once I opened up about it and didn’t hide it from them they were way more receptive!
So how have I changed over the past 10 years? Well, 16-26 is a age-range that is full of change! Going from high-school, to college, and then out into the real world! I went away to a BIG10 school, University of Iowa. I became a Biomedical Engineer. I have lived in 4 different states in that time. I have built prosthetics, done research at major medical universities, and been in operating rooms guiding physicians during procedures! I have become a triathlete. I have made a lot of friends, and I have grown a lot, not physically i’m still only 5 feet tall.
So, I challenge you. What do your last 10 years look like?
