Episode 9: Finding My New Normal

What happens when you've fought so hard to survive... and now you have to figure out how to live?

In this episode of Resilience with Tasha Schuh, I share what it was like returning to school, navigating new challenges, and trying to find my place in a future that looked very different than the one I had imagined.

Along the way, I discovered new sources of hope, gained important independence, and began to realize that life after my accident could still be meaningful, purposeful, and full of possibilities.

But even as things improved on the outside, there were still battles happening beneath the surface.

In this episode:

• Returning to school and adapting to a new routine

• The life-changing impact of wheelchair camp

• Finding greater independence through surgery and adaptive equipment

• Graduating with the class I was determined to finish alongside

• Learning that hope can exist even when life doesn't go according to plan

Mentioned in this episode:

Tenodesis Splint Demonstration Video:

https://youtu.be/oRuRnb_zqLY?si=xzyqaIe2J-YYKvaO

Next time:

Graduation marked the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

As I began exploring colleges and preparing for life after high school, I found myself facing new challenges, new opportunities, and important questions about who I was becoming.

The future was waiting.

I just wasn't quite sure where it would lead.

Learn more about my resilience coaching and speaking at: https://TashaSchuh.com

I would also love to hear from you. If there are topics you’d like me to cover or guests you’d love to hear from, please reach out and share your ideas with me at: Tasha@TashaSchuh.com

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe to the podcast and share it with someone who could use hope and resilience today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome back to Resilience with Tasha Shu. I so appreciate you being here and taking time of your busy day to dive deeper into my story. Now, I have to tell you, I am having so much fun recording these episodes. It has been such a gift to look back on this journey, and it means so much to me that you continue to listen and follow along. So thank you for spending part of your day with me. This is episode nine, Finding My New Normal. So when we left off last time, I had finally made it home. After months in the hospital, months in rehab, a stay at the Ronald McDonald house, and three weeks living with my friend Jesse so I could attend prom, I had finally moved into our new home. And for so long, I mean, the goal had been simple: get home. But once I got there, I quickly realized something. Getting home was not the finish line. In many ways, it was just the beginning. The hospital had taught me how to survive. Now I had to figure out how to live. And I was trying to return to school, adapt to a completely different body, navigate a world that suddenly seemed full of obstacles, and learned how to create a routine that worked. And when it came time to return to school, I was not ready for a full schedule. So instead, I started by attending one class period a day. And honestly, some days were extremely and incredibly frustrating. Because what nobody prepares you for after a spinal cord injury is all the things that happened beyond the paralysis itself. They think, oh, you're just paralyzed, you can't feel. There is so much more. I was learning very quickly, but there were so many challenges that came with living in a body that worked nothing like it once had. I mean, one of the biggest challenges, honestly, that I was facing involved my bladder. Before my accident, I had already dealt with frequent urinary tract infections. Because of that history, because I had experienced so many infections while I was in the hospital, the doctors decided that a permanent catheter with a leg bag was not going to be an option for me. And honestly, I was devastated. A leg bag would have allowed me so much freedom. I could have gone about my day without constantly worrying about my bladder schedule. But instead, the doctors told me that I would need to be catheterized every six hours. So that meant every six hours, roughly about four times a day, I had to stop whatever I was doing and get cast. And when I was up in my chair throughout the day, that meant I would have to transfer out of my wheelchair and get into bed. Get undressed from the waist down and have someone empty my bladder. Now, thankfully, with my schedule, I only had to usually do this only once a day, but it was so annoying. And now I'm not gonna get into all the details, but I can tell you this. It was embarrassing. I was 16 years old. Oh, well, by this time, I was 17 years old. And like most teachers, it was embarrassing. I was 17 years old. And like most teenagers, I wanted independence, I wanted privacy. And I already had lost so much of my modesty after my accident. In the hospital, nurses, medical staff were helping me with everything. But somehow that felt different. It was their job. Coming home was harder. And that was family members and caregivers helping me with some of the most personal parts of my life. And I'd only let my mom help me, outside of a few times where she couldn't do it, so we got other people, but that was rare. Which meant my mom and I had a very restricted schedule. If I wanted to go somewhere, I always had one eye on the clock. I could only be gone for about six hours before I had to get back home. And I often joked that I felt like Cinderella. You know, instead of rushing home before midnight, I was rushing home before my bladder schedule turned my day upside down. And it was frustrating. But deep down, I knew there was a better way. While I was in the rehab, on the rehab unit, Neela told me about a surgery that they were they could reroute my bladder to my belly button. Now, it seemed weird. I had met one other person who had the surgery done, but this seemed like the answer because instead of having to transfer out of my wheelchair every time, I would eventually be able to insert a catheter through the small opening in my belly button and empty my bladder while remaining in my chair. Now, to me, this sounded amazing. It sounded like freedom. It sounded like the answer. But the problem was that the doctors would not allow me to have the surgery yet. They wanted me to wait nearly a year after my injury to see what recovery might happen. Because as they explained, most of the healing that is going to occur after a spinal cord injury typically happens during that one year, that first year period. So that reasoning made sense. But that did not make the waiting any easier. I wanted freedom, and I wanted it now. Now, at the same time, we were also trying to figure out caregiving. The county, Pierce County, where I had lived, had begun sending caregivers to help my family. And they were wonderful people. But again, there were agency policies and restrictions on what they were allowed to do. Unfortunately, many of those restrictions involved some of the very things that were the hardest things for my mom to do and some of the things I needed the most help with. So while having caregivers was certainly helpful, so much of the responsibility still fell on my mom. Like I mentioned in the last episode, I'm like, what would I do if I didn't have my mom? It's crazy. But we were all trying to figure out this new normal together. And one of the caregivers who had come to help me, she had previously sold Mary Kay. And she was so excited to do my makeup. Now I appreciated her enthusiasm, but let's just say our styles were a little different. By the time she was done, I looked like I belonged in an 80s music video. Blue eyeshadow, bright pink blush, bright pink lipstick, the whole thing. And I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, oh my goodness. When I smiled, I thanked her, rolled out the door. I mean, we were all learning, we were all adapting. And honestly, it gave me a good laugh then, and I still laugh about it today. But then came one of my favorite memories of my brother. One morning, uh, my regular caregiver couldn't come. I don't remember what happened, but my mom was pulled in a dozen different directions and somehow ended up just being my brother and me. And yes, I needed my makeup done. And I looked at him, he looked at me, and then he said, Let's do this. Now, I don't know if my brother had ever put mascara on on anyone in his life, probably not. But that morning he was determined. And I can still picture him concentrating so hard trying to carefully put mascara on my lashes without poking me in the eye. And the harder he tried to be serious, the more we laughed. And the more we laughed, the harder it became for him to actually put the mascara on. Now, what could have been a frustrating morning? Turn in one of those moments I'll never forget. Because looking back, it really wasn't about the mascara. It was about a brother who loved his sister enough to completely step outside of his comfort zone and help when help was needed. And in the middle of one of those hardest seasons of my life, those moments of laughter were priceless. Oh my goodness. Still laugh about it today. But as time went on, some of my friends started helping too with caregiving. One of those friends was Holly. Holly lived just down the street of our new house. I'd been friends with her since we were in fourth grade. And she began coming over a couple mornings, a week before school, to help me get ready. And so, and then when I was ready, then she would drive me to school. And at 17 years old, that felt much more normal than some of the other alternatives. I was desperately trying to hold on to as many pieces of my old life as possible. And having a friend help me get ready and then drive me to school felt a lot more like what a typical teenage morn teenager's morning should look like. At least that's what I thought. Because there was one thing I absolutely did not want to do ride the school bus. Now let me clarify: there's absolutely nothing wrong with the bus itself. The problem, again, I was 17 years old. And 17-year-olds don't always make decisions based on practicality. We make them based on what we think everyone else is going to think. And the bus that would pick me up had a wheelchair lift. And in my mind, that immediately made it different. It made me different. And I remember begging my mom not to make me ride it. I wanted Holly to drive me. I wanted things to feel normal. I wanted to blend in. I wanted to hold on to whatever pieces of my old life I still could. But eventually, I lost that battle. The school determined that it wasn't safe for my friends to transport me and they required me to ride the bus. Now I wasn't happy about it. In fact, I was pretty upset. And I remember feeling like one more thing had been taken away from me. But as often happens in life, a thing that I dreaded turned out to be nowhere near as bad as I imagined. I mean, the bus drivers were kind. I mean, we would visit on the way to school and on the ride home. And before long, riding the bus simply became part of my routine. It was not as bad. Typical teenager, right? But looking back now, I realized that the bus taught me something important. I mean, after my accident, I spent a lot of energy really worrying, worrying a lot about how things looked. Would people stare? Would they think I was different? But life was slowly teaching me a lesson that I would need to learn over and over again. Practicality matters more than popularity. And little by little I was learning that accepting help didn't make me weaker. It simply allowed me to keep moving forward, which is really important in that time. So around the same time, I was continuing to travel to Rochester every Wednesday for therapy and follow-up appointments. And while I was making progress, I was also beginning to realize that some of the equipment and some of the tools that I had been introduced to in rehab were gonna be important if I wanted more independence. And one of those tools was something called a Tino Disa splint. Now, in rehab, when I was on the rehab unit, Barb had shown me one and explained how it worked. But I took one look at it and immediately was like, no way. There is no way that I'm wearing that thing. It was bulky, it was obvious, and if I'm being completely honest, it was ugly. And that was enough for me to dismiss it. I was like, nope, I am not gonna use that. I will use other tools, I will use other things to be able to do the things that I need to do independently. But around that same time, um, after I had gotten out of the hospital, I connected with a young man named Holt from the Twin Cities. And Holt had experienced a spinal cord injury in a hockey accident two months after my accident. And I had a very he had a very similar level of injury to mine. And I'd actually seen his story on the news while I was still in the hospital. And eventually we connected because our aunts knew each other. And one of the first questions he asked me when I met him was, Where's your Tinodesis splint? I looked at him and I'm like, My what? He said, Your Tinodesis splint. He's like, Where is it? I was like, Oh, I don't use one. I think they're ugly. And then Holt started to show me all the things that he could do because he wore his. He could feed himself, he could pick things up, he could hold items. He was showing me all the things that he could do, all these tasks that he was doing independently that I still needed help with. And I remember watching him and realizing that maybe I had dismissed something that could actually make a huge difference in my life. But I still was not completely convinced. So one day I was actually out with my friend Jessie. And like so many times during that season, she was feeding me. Um, and at one point she said, you know, you should get that splint that Hole has. And I immediately responded, like, Oh, it's so ugly. I don't want to use that. And without missing a beat, Jessie looked at me and said, Wouldn't it be better to feed yourself than have everyone else feed you? That question hit me hard. Because she was right. I had been so worried about how the splint looked that I hadn't stopped to think about what it could give me: freedom, independence, the ability to do more for myself. And suddenly this splint didn't seem so ugly anymore. So the next time I went to Rochester, I told Barb, I want one of those splints. And so I started working with them to get this splint that it would allow me to hold utensils, pick up objects, and do more things on my own. Now, this splint is custom made and cost over $2,000. And that was a lot of money. We didn't have that kind of money laying around. So my mom kept telling me, you better use this. You better, this is a lot of money. You better use this, it better not sit on the counter. The funny thing is, I still use that exact splint today. So I certainly got my money's worth. But now, for those of you who may not be familiar with Tinodesis, which I'm going to assume is most of you, I will include a video in the show notes so you can see how it works and how I use it. I share it in my presentations when I speak, because it really is an amazing, an amazing splint. So looking back, that splint has taught me a lesson that had nothing to do with therapy. Sometimes we reject the very things that could help us because they don't look the way we wish they did. I thought wearing a splint would draw attention to my disability. But what I eventually realized was that independence was far more important than impairance. And that ugly little splint became one of the first tools that helped me take pieces of my life back. So that summer, uh, before I started my senior year, something else happened that would really um completely change how I viewed my future. Now, while I was still in the hospital, back up a couple months, a man named Bob Bardwell came to visit me. And Bob was a parapelagic. He was injured in a construction accident, and he lived near Rochester in a small town called Stewartville. And during his visit, he told me about his wheelchair sports camp that he organized every summer and suggested that I should come. Now I smiled, I nodded, but as soon as he left, I thought to myself, I ain't going in a wheelchair camp. Now, you have to understand this. I did not know anyone in a wheelchair before my accident. And unfortunately, the image that I had in my mind wasn't very positive. When I pictured wheelchair camp, I imagined a bunch of sad people sitting around feeling sorry for themselves. I imagined a future that I did not want. Now, looking back, I realized how wrong I was. But at the time, that's all I knew. But then a week before camp, Bob called my mom, and he's like, his message was simple. He was like, get her here. So my mom informed me that I was going, whether I liked it or not. Now, thankfully, she informed me that I could bring a friend. That helped a lot. Knowing that I wouldn't be there by myself. It wouldn't just be me and my mom. So I agreed. Kicking and screaming. The day we arrived happened to be lake day. And there was this huge pontoon boat, and they were loading wheelchairs onto it and taking everyone out on the lake. And on and almost immediately, I noticed two things. First, these were not sad people. Not even close. They were laughing, they were having fun, they were confident, they were living life, a full life. And second, the other thing that I noticed was that there were a lot of cute boys. Now remember, I had recently gone through a breakup. And as I shared in an earlier episode, I was convinced that I would never have a boyfriend again. And who would want to date a girl in a wheelchair? And so that thought had been running through my mind for months. But then I got to wheelchair camp, and suddenly there were all these cute guys talking to me and treating me like I was just another teenager. Actually, they were treating me like they liked me. And by the end of camp, I actually had a boyfriend. Now, he did live in Texas, which was a slight complication, but man was he cute. He modeled, he played wheelchair basketball, he was talented, successful, confident, and happened to be the guy all the girls at camp seemed to notice. And somehow I was the one who left camp, calling him my boyfriend. So, needless to say, my opinion of Wheelchair Camp improved dramatically. But as exciting as that was, the boys weren't what changed me most. What changed me was the people. Everywhere I looked, I saw individuals in wheelchairs doing things I didn't think were possible. They were independent, they had careers, they had college degrees, they were married, they were raising families. But most importantly, they were happy. For the first time since my accident, I could actually see a future for myself. A future that looked different than the one I had imagined before my injury, but a future that was still full of possibilities. And as camp continued, I kept asking my mom if we could go back the next day. Then the next day. Those of us with disabilities were the majority. And there was something incredibly freeing about that. Wheelchair camp gave me something I desperately needed. Hope. Not hope that everything will go back to the way it was before, but hope that I could still have a good life, a meaningful life, a successful life. And I left camp with something else too. A determination to become more independent. I watched people pushing their manual chairs, playing sports and doing things for themselves. And I became convinced that was what I wanted to. I didn't want to rely on my power chair forever. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to push my own chair. And that determination would end up shaping many of the decisions that I made as I prepared to return to school and begin my senior year. Now, when wheelchair camp ended, I headed into my senior year with a completely different outlook than I had just a few months earlier. Camp had shown me possibilities that I hadn't been able to see before. And for the first time since my accident, I was thinking about things like driving. I mean, my doctor, Dr. C told me that I would be able to drive. I was thinking about things like going to college and even the possibility of getting married someday now that I had managed to leave camp with a boyfriend. Now, life still looked very different. Than I had planned. But the first time I could actually picture a future, and that made me excited about my senior year. But I still had plenty of fears. And one of my biggest fears after my accident was that I would not be able to graduate with my class. Now that may seem like a small thing now, but at 17 years old, it felt huge. I mean, these were my classmates. They were my friends. They were the people that I had shared so many memories with throughout the years. And don't get me wrong, the class below me was great, but they weren't my class. And after everything I had already lost, I did not want to lose that too. Graduating with my class was incredibly important to me. And as my senior year approached, the school worked with my family to create a plan. It was decided that I would attend three class periods each day. I would not come for the first block because it was just, well, it was simply too hard for me to get up early. Took me too long to get ready in the mornings between getting dressed, personal cares, transportation, and everything else that now went into my daily routine. Getting to school first thing in the morning just was not realistic. So instead, I would arrive around 9:15, right around the time that second block would start, and I would stay for the next three class periods, which was the rest of the school day. And the school also arranged for a paraprofessional to attend classes with me. She would go with me from class to class, take notes, and help with anything that I needed so I could keep up with my schoolwork. And looking back, I am just so incredibly grateful for the accommodations and support that made it possible for me to continue my education. Now there were some hiccups, and I share more about that in my first book. But at this point, I was so grateful that I was able to go back to school because I only had a few classes left that I needed in order to graduate and be eligible for college. I still needed chemistry and algebra too, both of which were required if I wanted to attend college. And I also had an independent FIED class. Like I said, I hated my power chair. To me, it felt big, bulky, and made me look more disabled. So my independent Phi Ed program focused on building strength in my arms because I was convinced that if I worked hard enough, I could eventually push a manual wheelchair full time. Now looking back now, I can't help but smile. I was stubborn, very stubborn. But at the time, I wasn't ready to let go of that dream. And then there was choir. No matter how much my life had changed, music was something that I still loved. So that was part of my daily schedule also in school. And for the first time since my accident, I wasn't just focused on getting through the day. I was preparing for the future. And as exciting as my senior year was becoming, there was another milestone that I had been eagerly waiting for. September finally arrived, and with that came the bladder surgery that I had been desperately hoping to have. Like I said, the doctors originally had wanted me to wait until I was closer to my one-year anniversary. But did I mention that I was stubborn? My persistence paid off, and they agreed to do the surgery a couple months earlier. And I was thrilled. I mean, after everything I've been dealing with, I knew this surgery had the potential to give me so much more freedom and independence. Now, the surgery itself lasted 14 hours. I mean, they really rerouted everything on my insides. And when I woke up afterward, I remember thinking, what in the world did I do to myself? I was miserable. I was sick. There were tubes coming out of me everywhere. And this was a huge surgery. I mean, I spent about two and a half weeks in the hospital recovering before finally returning home. And then it was time to focus on healing and getting caught up in school because I had missed so much of the beginning of my senior year, probably close to a month by the time I came back. I needed tutoring to help me get caught up with my classes. But as I recovered, I began to see almost immediately why the surgery had been worth it. Instead of having to transfer out of my wheelchair, I can now empty my bladder through my belly button. And at first I needed help, but I knew that eventually I would be able to do it myself. And that meant freedom. Plus, it was just my belly button. Anyone could do it, anybody could help. And I didn't feel like I was losing my modesty or feel like I was, you know, showing everything off to the world. And so my mom wasn't really all that excited about going into the surgery. You know, she's like, you've been through so much. Why would you want to put yourself under surgery again? You almost died last time with that surgery for my neck. But thankfully everything went well. And she was also grateful that I had done this. And as I continued healing, I knew the surgery was going to make a tremendous difference, not only for my senior year, but for college and for the independent future that I was wanting to build. And so, as much as my life was improving on the outside, there were still a lot of struggles happening beneath the service. And I was having all these great things happen. But the truth was, I was still dealing with a tremendous amount of anger, frustration, and sadness. And even though wheelchair camp had given me hope, once I returned home and settled back into my daily reality, I found myself getting pulled into something that I call the what if game. Now I played it constantly. It was this. What if I had gone out for basketball that year? I wouldn't have been at play practice. What if I had been on stage the night before and heard the announcement that the trapdoor was open? What if I hadn't taken that one step backward? What if I had done something, anything differently? Over and over again, I replayed the accident in my mind, searching for a different outcome, searching for a way to undo what had happened. But the problem was, I was learning this was a game that I would never win. Because no matter how many times I replayed it, I could not change the past. The accident happened, I couldn't go back. And as much as I wanted to, and as much as I would have given anything to change what happened, I couldn't. And that realization left me feeling powerless, overwhelmed, and consumed by regret. It also contributed to something else that I was struggling with. I still continued to feel like I was a burden. Now, this was something that I had already been struggling with and would struggle with for years, but I hated how dependent I was on everyone around me. And even though I was gaining more independence, there were still so many things that I needed help with every single day. And those were things that most people never have to think about. Because now I'm not going to go into all the details, but there were so many aspects of my care that left me feeling embarrassed and frustrated. And I wanted my old life back. I wanted my privacy back. I wanted my independence back. And when you're carrying all those emotions, they eventually come out somewhere. For me, they often came out toward my mom. I was kind to my caregivers, I was kind to my friends, but my mom got the worst of me. Partly because she was there through all of it, and partly because deep down I knew she wasn't going anywhere. And at the same time, I was watching my parents struggle, their marriage, especially. And by this point, they had separated. My dad had moved back into our old house. And although he continued helping whenever we needed him, I mean, both of my parents were carrying enormous responsibilities. And I could see the strain that all of this really had continued to play be placed on them. And it broke my heart. I felt like it was all my fault, all my fault. I felt like if I hadn't had my accident, they would not be going through any of this. Now, my parents by now had opened the new grocery store, which also consumed much of their time and energy. And even though they were separated, they were still continuing to work together every day to make the business succeed. But there was a lot happening in our family. More than I fully understood at the time. There was also the growing stress surrounding my accident and the financial reality that came with it. Because for months, medical bills continued to pile up as our insurance refused to cover a majority of the services that were provided while I was in the hospital. And so May Clinic was calling, bill collectors were calling, and there were even concerns that my wheelchair could be taken back because it hadn't been paid for. And my parents spent months trying to navigate the situation and avoid legal action. I mean, we lived in a small town. My parents owned their grocery store, and the idea of filing a lawsuit carried a lot of stigma. They did not want to move forward with this. But eventually, they realized they had no choice. Even the school superintendent wrote my parents a letter and told them you need to pursue legal action. Because we had to finally, we had to find a way to pay some of these bills associated with my accident and the ongoing expenses and care that I would need in the future. So reluctantly, my parents hired an attorney, and things slowly began in the direction of a lawsuit. Now, at the time, I didn't fully understand everything that was happening. I just knew it was one more stressor that my family was carrying. And this caused me so much stress. It caused me to worry and fear. And so as my senior year continued, I also found myself coping with all of this in the ways, in ways that weren't very healthy. Now, before the accident, I had gone to parties, drank beer with my friends. I mean, that was just kind of a normal thing that we did in our small town. But now it felt different. Now drinking became a way to escape, a way to forget, a way to temporarily stop thinking about everything that had changed and to escape the fears and worries I was feeling and watching my family feel. At first, my friends loved bringing me to the parties. And then slowly something began to change. My friends were beginning to party without me, and little by little, I started spending more Friday and Saturday evenings at home. Not because they didn't care about me, but because bringing me somewhere meant someone had to stay sober. Someone had to drive me, someone had to help if they were gonna if they were gonna take me to this party. And over time, it just became easier for many of them to simply go without me. Now I don't think anyone intended to hurt me, but it was lonely. It was very lonely. And my relationship with my boyfriend from Texas was also beginning to fade. And as exciting as wheelchair camp had been, maintaining a relationship from thousands of miles away was not easy. And so little by little that relationship began to drift apart as well. Yet despite all of these struggles, one thing kept moving me forward. I had a goal. And as graduation grew closer, another exciting question began to emerge. What's next? Thinking about my future and wondering where life might take me after high school. And before I knew it, graduation had arrived. And it was a really big deal. Not just because I was graduating from high school, but because there had been a time when I wasn't sure if any of this would happen. And now, somehow, here I was preparing to graduate with my class. And one of the things that made graduation even more special was that Serena and I graduated together. As I mentioned earlier in this podcast, Serena had been involved in a serious car accident just days before my accident and had sustained a traumatic brain injury. And although she would continue attending school until I think, I think she went to school until she was 21, we were able to graduate together with our class. We were able to walk and celebrate together. And after everything both of us had been through, that felt incredibly meaningful. Now, graduation was a lot of fun. I sang with vocal jazz during the ceremony, which was something I was determined to do. And then came the celebration. My family hosted a graduation party for me. And honestly, it felt like half the town of Ellsworth showed up. I mean, the support was overwhelming. So many people had followed my journey, they had prayed for me, encouraged me, supported my family, and now they were celebrating right alongside us. And it wasn't just a graduation party, it felt like a celebration of survival, a celebration of perseverance, a celebration of everything it had taken to get to that moment. It was amazing. But then came the question that everybody asks at the graduation party. So what are you going to do now? Now, for the first time, I had to begin thinking seriously about my future. I mean, where some people had completely written me off after my accident. I also was seeing that my classmates believed in me. My classmates, they actually voted me, I think it was most likely to change history. And I was so honored that they thought so highly of me. And I did not want to let them down. I needed to think seriously about what my next steps were after high school. And thankfully, thankfully, I had an amazing school psychologist. Oh my goodness, she was determined that I was going to attend college. In her mind, it wasn't even a question. But the question was, where? And the more we talked about it, the more excited I became about the possibilities. Maybe college really was possible. Maybe I could live away from home. Maybe I could build a future that was bigger than I had ever imagined. And as I looked out at the crowd during graduation, I realized something. My life wasn't over. But the next challenge would be figuring out where that new life would take me. So that's exactly what we're going to pick up next time in the next episode. I'm going to be sharing really what happened as I began preparing for college, exploring my options, and moving toward a future that looked very different than the one I had originally imagined. But it was a season that was filled with excitement, uncertainty, growth, a lot of fear, and some lessons that would ultimately shape the rest of my life. So thank you so much for joining me for episode nine of Resilience with Tasha Shu. If you enjoyed today's episode, I would be so grateful if you would share it with someone who might need a little encouragement or hope or would love to learn more from my journey. If you're enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a review. It helps more people find these conversations and this message of resilience. So until next time, remember resilience isn't about having all the answers. It's about continuing to move forward, even when you can't see yet where the path is leading. I'll see you next time.