Jamika is a young adult cancer survivor currently navigating life on the West Coast as a native East Coaster. She is also a January 2020 Ignite Experience alum. The Ignite Experience is a free, 10-week virtual program that helps participants find connection, growth, and belonging. You can explore more about the program here. This post is the second in a series written by alumni of the first Ignite Experience, who wanted to share their personal stories as they explored concepts of the program. To read the first post, click here, to read the third post, click here. 

Nothing in life humbles you more than not getting something you really wanted or being totally blindsided from left field. The nice thing about that humility is that it really teaches you how to embrace change and empowers you to seek it in the future. That’s not to say change gets easier, but it certainly reassures you that you can survive it and that it might even result in something good. I distinctly remember the changes that humbled me, and though I haven’t made a full glass out of either situation yet, I’m definitely looking at a glass half full. 

Being the chronic overachiever I was in high school, I thought I’d make my way through college and into the workforce seamlessly. Of course, I heard all of the negative stereotypes about pursuing both a degree and career in the arts, but everyone thinks they’re the exception and not the rule. So, you can imagine my dismay and discomfort when I found myself living back at home post-graduation–not yet enrolled in graduate school, not in an urban metropolis with artistic opportunity, and with no job prospects in my field. I could’ve easily felt defeated and given up, but instead, I decided to lean into old talents and interests and landed myself a job in higher education. Though not at all how I envisioned life post-graduation, it was a reminder that I can always actively make changes and that it’s ok when things don’t “go according to plan.”

After several years of navigating my way through higher education and beginning to work on my way out to pursue a career in the arts, my “blindsiding moment,” as I call it, came down like a ton of bricks. An unexpected cancer diagnosis just a few weeks ahead of my 25th birthday sent my life into a tailspin. 

After weeks in the hospital, several more weeks of physical therapy, and several months on leave from work, it was time to yet again reassess and decide what changes I wanted to make next. It started with small changes like altering my diet, walking a little more, driving again, and worked its way up to more ambitious goals like moving cross country. After months of job searching on the West Coast, I landed a good job and packed up for Los Angeles. While still not living my dream artist lifestyle, it was one step closer to all of those goals I had set back in college– prior to my diagnosis. 

Life is funny that way. Just when you start to think something is out of your grasp, something reminds you that a deferral doesn’t have to be a permanent ending. It’s comforting to know that every time I get slightly off track, the only thing that stands in my way of fixing it is a choice to change. As William Ernest Henley said, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

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