Rachel Sheppard

Seven years ago, when my growth spurts first began to kick in, I thought that my lanky legs and awkward lack of coordination were only temporary. I thought that the bruises and scrapes I got every day were all just a part of an unusually long phase. At the beginning of my sophomore year in high school no one would have ever imagined that I, one of the most uncoordinated people in my class, would go on Swiss Semester, a physically demanding study abroad program. I left for Switzerland an uncoordinated, naive, and protected sophomore. When I called home on the local pay phone once a week, I instantly heard the relief in my mom’s voice that I had not fallen off a mountain yet. In fact, I’m a little surprised as well that I made it out of the process without breaking any bones. From rappelling down 100-foot waterfalls to ice climbing up glacier crevasses and heli-skiing through the Alps, I gained a completely new outlook on life because of the three months I spent in Zermatt. Despite the fact that I had substantially more bruises and encountered several more life-threatening stumbles than anyone else on the program, I never allowed my lack of grace to prevent me from taking on any of the new challenges I faced. While genetically I know I’ll never be the most coordinated person, and I know I’ll probably never stop stubbing my toes and skinning my knees, I also know that I will never let these obstacles prevent me from trying new things. Looking back, I now realize that my accidental injuries don’t define me; instead, they are merely bumps in my evolution of growing up and dealing with the cards that life has dealt me. To this day I still scrape myself constantly, but I get up, laugh, and move on.