Life With A Bucket List

Start Living

My entire life was planned out for me from the start. In my parents' defense, they did it with my own safety and happiness in thought, but it was still planned out all the same.

I was born on February 15, 1993, to two loving parents, Stephanie and Ethan Kellar, at Evergreen Hospital during a snow storm. I was 7 lbs, 9 oz and had a full head of red hair. When I opened my eyes, they were a dark grey.

These were some of the things my parents couldn't control.

I started noticing the controlling when I was about 9, but I supposed it started when I was born. They were just small things, like what I should wear and how to cut my hair. You know, typical decisions that parents make for their young children.

But, as the years went by, the decisions started becoming bigger and bigger and they were no longer mine to make.

When I got into middle school, my parents took my class selection and skimmed over it, filling out the electives I would take and whether or not I would be in advanced classes (of course, they chose yes). After that, when I started high school, they chose my classes again. And the sports I played. And who I hung out with. And still, the clothes I wore.

Throughout this whole time, I noticed how other people were their own type of people and being themselves, while my life was ruled by my parents. I saw them doing exciting things while I was studying or practicing for sports that I didn't really enjoy. One day, I decided to write down all of the things I saw my "peers" experiencing that I wanted to happen to me. I was 13 when I started my bucket list.

Obviously, the very first things I put on my bucket list were "fall in love" and "be kissed" (not necessarily in that order). As I became more experienced at writing my bucket list, I added more detailed things that were specific to me, such as "visit Paris during the spring" and "open an art gallery."

The accident happened on June 6, 2011, the day after I graduated from high school, at 10:21 P.M. My parents and I were taking a road trip up to New York to visit NYU, the college they were mainly focused on for me. I had looked into the school's artistic department and was extremely pleased with what I came up with, so I was extremely excited for this trip.

My dad was driving through a green light at the same time a minivan ran through its red light. Only later did I find out that the man driving the car was trying to get his pregnant wife who was in labor to the hospital.

It nailed us straight in the back bumper, causing us to start spinning. We hit a pothole in the road and started flipping.

An ambulance showed up and my family and I arrived at the same hospital I was born in at 11:04 P.M. I don't remember that night very well, only that I was in incredible pain. I blacked out at 11:29 P.M.

I woke up the next morning at 7:25. I remember opening my eyes felt like lifting a pair of lead weights. Speaking, though, came easily, if not slightly sloppily.

"Where are my parents?" I asked the nurse who was checking up on me at that moment.

My mother had died at 1:34 A.M. My father had died at 2:03 A.M. I found out later that man driving the car that hit us had also died. His daughter was born later that day.

The first thing I felt was overwhelming sadness and loneliness. Why did MY parents have to die? Why did this have to happen to ME?

The next thing I felt - for which I still haven't forgiven myself- was relief. I was finally the single decision maker in my life.

I was released from the hospital a week later to a world where I was completely alone. I remember walking out onto the sidewalk outside the hospital and putting my hands in my pockets. I felt a crumpled paper, which I pulled out. It was my bucket list.

On the day of my parents' funeral, I again looked at my bucket list. I decided that day that I needed to stop writing down these things and start living them.

On that day, I decided to start living.