In my family (and by family, I mean immediate family ― mom, dad, brother, sister ― because my actual family counting all my living relatives is huge), I feel like I've always generally been the least healthy one. It's not like I grew up with a serious illness or got sick all the time or anything. I was just always the one who seemed to have the most little health issues.
When I was around 4 or 5, my ankle would often feel weird and painful so much that I wouldn't want to walk. (I don't know what was wrong with me then because I haven't been able to look at my medical history, but it did stop.) I got nosebleeds a lot as a kid. The nurse and my teachers at my small Catholic school were never surprised whenever I got one. My vision is the worst and always has been of my family. I have pretty thick lenses in my frames. I had braces longer than both of my siblings. I had to get gum surgery two or three times.
But none of those health issues really compare to this: I've had two seizures ― technically three if you count the time I had tingling in my left arm and foot which the epileptologist said was a seizure that never spread to my entire body.
Not many people know my story, but as a writer, it just makes sense to at least try to share my own story in a gesture of support to those who can relate and to raise awareness.
This is a blog post idea I've had for a while. In fact, this has been in my drafts for a few weeks now, but I never got around to posting or finishing it until this week. If you haven't figured it out, I'm sharing more about myself in this post, using every letter of the alphabet, I've chosen a word or phrase that is somehow about me.
Some of these letters were really easy to choose something for while others were definitely a struggle. But I thought this would be a really fun blog post to do.
Amanda
If you're familiar with my blog or got to this post from any of my social media, then you probably know Amanda is my first name. I'm 99-percent sure my parents named me Amanda because it starts with an A.
If you didn't already know, I'm a twin, and her name is Ashley. Ashley was born first, and my mom knew she wanted to name her Ashley after Ashley Judd. So I guess my parents thought of other names that began with A and liked Amanda.
Books
Just some of my books! This is probably 1/4 of the books I have in my room.
I've always loved books and reading. I do consider myself a bookworm and will forever have a never-ending "to-read" list. I have the Goodreads app on my phone and my Kindle so I can always keep track of what I'm reading. I can spend hours at Barnes and Noble browsing the shelves for new books to read (as if there aren't enough books I already want to read!).
Carmela
This is my middle name, which I use along with my first name for all of my social media usernames. It's my paternal grandmother's first name, and I really like it. I think it flows and goes well with my first name and last name. Plus, it's pretty and rather unique but not too unique.
I've been wanting to add more variety to my blog content and decided to do more "about me" posts. I've had this blog for a while now but don't have much content under this label, so I'm going to try to do more about me posts, whether they be fun random ones like these or more personal posts.
I had a weird phase where I went back and forth about liking pizza.
Don't worry. I love pizza now.
This was when I was around 5/6/7-years-old, which was the peak of my picky eating. I don't know why I did this, but for a little while I didn't like pizza, and then I did for several months. Then I decided I didn't like it anymore and went back and forth for a few years, I think?
Eventually I snapped out of it and stuck with liking pizza.
It's crazy to think back to that time because 1. it doesn't even make sense, and 2. I love pizza now. I couldn't imagine not eating pizza now!
This past Sunday was World Suicide Prevention Day and marked the start of National Suicide Prevention Week. September is National Suicide Prevention Month. This year, mental health non-profit To Write Love on Her Arms created its annual NSPD campaign: "Stay. Find what you were made for."
I am choosing to stay, and this is what I was made for.
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being a twin, daughter, sister, niece, aunt, and friend
Having relationships, especially familial ones, is unavoidable in life. Unless you live in isolation from the rest of the world, you're pretty much going to have relationships with other people. So it's important to maintain good relationships with those in your life and to do your best at being in those roles.
I very much believe I was meant to be an identical twin. My twin sister is such a huge and vital part of my life. I couldn't imagine it without her.
Being a daughter and sister are roles I've always had. As the youngest of three children, I never knew what it was like to be an only child. My family spends a lot of time together (or at least I feel like we do), so being there and just spending time with my parents, brother, and sister are important to me.
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I'm not actually an aunt in the traditional sense since neither of my siblings have children, but several of my cousins do, so I'm an aunt to them. Over the past few years, I've become closer to my nieces and have become one of those aunts who spoils their nieces. I love buying things for people, so I definitely feel like I was made to be the aunt who spoils her nieces and nephews.
Two of my mom's sisters, whom she's closest to out of her many siblings, don't have kids. Because my mom is very close with these two sisters, I often feel like a daughter to them, too, even though I'm only their niece. So I cherish the role of niece very much since they are like second mothers to me.
being an Illini
I could go on and on about going to the University of Illinois, but I feel like I already did that in my sappy post-graduation blog post. So read this blog post from May if you want to know why I was meant to be an Illini.
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God's glory
I've been going to church for my entire life. I go every weekend (for the most part. Life gets in the way sometimes.), and I've been taught to do everything for His glory. Without Him, I would not be who or where I am.
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wearing pink
Anyone who knows me knows I love the color pink. I wear it every day. Pink is seen as a girly color, but I feel it's a very versatile color that can represent different things depending on the shade. As someone who doesn't necessarily have a set style I adhere to when it comes to clothes, I feel pink very much describes me.
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sharing stories, capturing moments, and reading lots of books
Writing, photography, and reading: three activities I enjoy doing. I've always enjoyed reading and writing. English/language arts was always one of my favorite (if not my favorite) subjects as a kid. Also, as an introvert and rather shy person at times, I definitely prefer writing to speaking. So I definitely know I was made to write. Reading just goes along with that. Reading improves your writing, and I just love to read books.
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Photography wasn't something that I was into until later on in my education. I always thought taking and looking at pictures was cool, but there's a difference between photography and just liking pictures. I love being able to capture memories and moments, communicating an emotion or message visually based on lighting and composition, simply taking a snapshot of something so you can remember it forever.
loving gymnastics
Gymnastics was just one of the few sports I wanted to do when I was younger but never got to do. But I know I was meant to love it. I've developed a passion for it unlike any other interest I've had, so that's got to mean something. I say this a lot and have mentioned it in multiple blog posts, but it really has meant so much to me and impacted my life a lot in the past few years. So instead of rambling on about gymnastics forever, here are some old blog posts where I demonstrate and explain my love for the sport:
Dance is another activity I wanted to do when I was younger, albeit briefly. I don't like to be the center of attention or have much attention on me at all, so being a dancer was a little scary for me. Also, I'd totally get stage fright before a dance performance since I get super nervous before I have to do a speech or presentation. Fortunately, I can still appreciate dance by watching it, whether that be on TV, an actual performance, or online.
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Action sports, however, were not on my list of things I wanted to do as a kid. I was totally fine just playing Tony Hawk video games on my brother's PlayStation or PlayStation 2. But action sports, like dance and gymnastics, are underrated in terms of sports and athletic activities. They're the kinds of things people see and think are cool, but that's about it. As someone who was never the superstar in sports or smartest kid in class, I appreciate the underrated. I appreciate the underdogs.
being a yerd (aka yearbook nerd)
The first time I did yearbook was in middle school. It was an after-school club, and I remember voting for the cover of my sixth-grade yearbook at the first meeting. I only went to one or two more meetings after that because volleyball took up my time. Considering middle school yearbook staff members don't really do much (at least at my middle school), I'm not too upset about not staying in yearbook then.
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Fast forward a few years, and being in yearbook was so important to me. I would not be the same person I am today without it. The combination of writing, design, and photography in more of a fun magazine style (as opposed to a newspaper) is perfect for me. I've always enjoyed writing. I've been playing around and experimenting with graphic design on Photoshop since middle school. I've grown to really enjoy photography and see it as more than just taking pictures in the past few years. So what could be better? The attention to detail, combination of media, and creativity involved in yearbook lets me know I was made to be a yerd.
being a fan(girl)
For as long as I can remember, there's been a celebrity, athlete, sport, movie, etc. I've been pretty much obsessed with.
First it was Hilary Duff. I didn't have cable channels in elementary and middle school, so I didn't get to watch Lizzie McGuire as much as my classmates, but I still watched as much of it as I could. I got all the DVDs I could find. My sister and I got all of her CDs. We even had a gigantic poster of her hanging above our bed at one point.
The next big one was definitely High School Musical, which I totally still love today (no shame). Like I just said, I didn't have cable in elementary school, so when everyone at lunch would talk about it in fifth grade, I definitely felt left out and had no clue what they were talking about. Eventually I watched it and became legit obsessed with it. I own all three movies (two copies each of the first two because I needed the special edition ones that came out later!), four CDs (three soundtracks and a remix CD), did a seventh grade language arts project on Zanessa (forever sad about their breakup), and even had HSM waffles (I still have the box under my bed).
In seventh grade came my love for my favorite skateboarder Ryan Sheckler, leading me to watch action sports of all kinds. I even have old JC Penney circulars that have him in it from his old clothing line.
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Five years later I fell in love with gymnastics. And I won't go on about that for the millionth time. And now that's pretty stable. I still love Ryan Sheckler, and I've recently started to become obsessed with Taron Egerton (watch Kingsman: The Golden Circle on September 22!), but it appears my love for gymnastics beats all the others. After all, I aspire to be a gymnastics writer/reporter, so I don't see my passion for the sport leaving anytime soon.
I don't know what it is about all of the things listed above but I can't help but realize that I love to show my support for the people and things I love. Maybe it's because I've struggled with making friends and these obsessions help me make friends. Whatever it is, it was meant to be, even if I was sometimes annoying by not talking about anything else.
"Stay. Find what you were made for."
During this National Suicide Prevention Week and National Suicide Prevention Month, choose to stay, because you were made for something. Whether you know what that is or you're still looking for it, there is a reason you are still here.
This past Monday, I rediscovered by Blogger account while I was editing my current portfolio website. I originally made it so I could comment on Triple Twist Gym Blog's posts, where I am a contributor. (If you love gymnastics, you should definitely check it out.) Since I already had an account here and kind of wanted to start a blog, I decided to make this.
Even though I decided to use this to make a new blog, I wasn't completely sure of what I wanted the blog to be about or what it should be called. I'm a big huge fan of gymnastics and a big action sports fan, so those were two possibilities right there. But I already blog about gymnastics, so I threw that out. Then I realized I didn't want to limit myself to one subject, and I didn't want to make more than one blog, so I just decided to make a general one.
Once I figured that out, it was time to come up with a blog title and blog URL. I got "Identically Unique" from the fact that I am an identical twin, but my twin and I are quite different from one another even though we are the same in many ways, therefore making me, or us, unique.
