I don't remember the last thing my dad said to me. I've searched my memories of his last week with us, and I just can't find it. I remember lots of other things from that week, though. I remember sitting on the front porch with him, enjoying a rare, cool July afternoon. I remember helping him put on his compression socks. I remember the smell of his body wash as the nurses gave him his last bath. I remember holding my little sister, twelve years old, while she cried on my shoulder. I remember him laughing. I remember him crying. I remember him saying "you can always depend on Leah", which is something I didn't know he thought until that moment. That week was mostly a blur, but I have a few precious snapshots of him. As I'm writing this, it has been around three months since my dad passed away. He'd been sick for a long time, but his body finally shut down this summer. Going back to school felt strange; like I was doing everything for the first time. It doesn’t help that one of the primary focuses of my home health class is hospice, which my dad spent his last week on. As much as I wish I could close my blinds, pull up my covers, and close out the world, it’s college application season. I owe it to my dad to make something of myself, as difficult as that may be right now. In the meantime, I’m finding things to dull the ache of missing him. I go on walks through the woods, imagining he’s there beside me. I watch the birds near our house, wishing I could ask him what the different species are called. I watch crappy action movies, thinking all the snarky comments I would say about them if he was still here. I also go to therapy, because there’s only so much I can do on my own. I owe my dad so much of who I am. He taught me the value of hard work, and it would be a shame if I spent so much time missing him that I forgot to live up to his expectations. I don’t remember the last thing my dad said to me, but I remember how much he loved me. Surely he’s still cheering me on, ushering me forward into the life he always wanted me to have.

In my sophomore year of high school, I joined the student planning committee for the first ever large-scale LGBTQ+ pride event in Johnston County, North Carolina. We were given thousands of dollars in private donations and grants. The plan was to host a festival at Johnston Community College with around 1000 attendees. We had a committee for logistics, communication and entertainment. I was the student chair for the communication committee, which means I was responsible for the event's social media and marketing. I am proud to say that our TikTok page's most popular video has 204,000 likes and over 700,00 views. Our head faculty advisor, the brilliant Mr. Raymond Morrison, was adamant that we would all have new skills to put on our resumes. Thanks to his encouragement, I now know how to conduct a meeting, draft a proposal, and write a communication report. While the festival was set up to be a success, it had to be cancelled at the last minute due to community threats. We hung a sign in the window of one of our vendors, and within the same day there was a group of angry men banging on the doors. Not only did they demand the sign be taken down, but also that the event be cancelled. The community at large mad similar threats, and soon the college and our advisors deemed it too dangerous to continue. We were able to hold parts of the event digitally, but it was difficult to pivot so last-minute. While I am so proud of everything we were able to accomplish, I will admit that I lost my motivation after the threats. I felt betrayed by community, so much so that I was afraid to put my effort into a new projects. We used the extra grant money to fund smaller events at the college, but I didn't work as hard on them as I should have. I wish that I could tell my younger self not to give up so easily. I still could have made something I was proud of, but I let angry, hateful people get the better of me. Next time I will know better. So now I am facing this beautiful, brilliant opportunity to make something of myself, and I am terrified that money will be the thing weighing me down. I want so badly to go study biochemistry, to learn the secrets of the human body and use them to improve the human condition. I want to push for healthcare reforms, especially in my home state. I believe that, given enough time and effort, I can better the lives of my fellow North Carolinians. I know that I have a lot to learn, but I will not let the evils of this world keep me down. Thank you for your consideration.

There was a mural on my elementary school's wall with a bright blue sky and fluffy trufulla trees. Next to the tree was a quote from Dr. Seuss's "The Lorax": "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not". I would pass that quote every day, and something about it stuck with me. It has been my persistent moral compass, my obnoxious Jiminy Cricket, ever since. Any time I think of slacking off, of letting someone else handle a big problem, I am faced with a yellow mustache saying, "If not you, then who?" Who am I to ignore the speaker of the trees? Now if there is a problem, I am the first person so raise my hand with a solution. I wont pretend to be perfect (sometimes my solutions make things worse), but I always try. I feel that so many of our world's problems are due to inaction. Would there be so much hunger if more people volunteered for food banks? Would there be as much infectious disease if pharmaceutical companies would donate their products? Would there be as much environmental downturn if more people were willing to fight climate change? If not you, then who? This year, I am facing a uniquely exciting and terrifying opportunity. I have an intense passion for biochemistry, and I intend on funneling that passion into a career in medicine. While I would love to go into some lucrative specialty and rake in the millions, that is not what The Lorax would have me do. Instead, I am beginning to confront the reality that the medical system is broken and unjust. For a very long time, I believed in the narrative pushed by shows like "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Resident", the narrative that doctors were these all-knowing, benevolent people with impeccable reasoning and perfect hair. As I've grown up and seen more of the healthcare sector, I have realized that doctors, nurses, and CNAs are all flawed human beings with all the biases and baggage that comes with that. Even the best of them are still working in a system that prioritizes profit over human lives. It is impossible to be a truly good doctor unless I am able to challenge the healthcare system. Not only will I try to make life better for individuals, I will try to make life better for all North Carolinians looking for healthcare.

Going to university and making something of myself means paying back the debt I owe to my brilliant mother. The summer before her fortieth birthday, my mom finally got my abusive father out of our house. Those first few months without him were uncertain and terrifying, but my mom handled it all on her own. She worked three jobs (yes, three) to support her four daughters through the most stressful time in all of our lives. During that time, my mom started working on a bachelor's degree, but never finished it. I don't blame her at all (school was not the highest thing on her priority list), but I always wished that I could have seen her graduate. She has a much better job now and isn't planning on going back to school, so it seems only right that I take the opportunity she gave me with great enthusiasm. Theoretically, I could pay my mother back without going to college. There are plenty of worthwhile pursuits that don't require a degree. I could be a welder, a plumber, a taxidermist, a florist, or a photographer. The problem is that my great love is education and I cannot imagine doing anything else. I don’t want to overly-romanticize this, but I have an immense passion for biochemistry and I intend on exploring the subject as rigorously as possible. Biology and chemistry on their own are fascinating. Biology is the study of life. We are biology and biology is the lens through which we may understand the natural world. Chemistry is the study of our universe’s building blocks. Without chemistry, our concept of reality would consist almost entirely of abstract properties and educated guesswork. Biochemistry combines these two fields so that we may uncover the ways in which life is created and perpetuated. By studying it, I hope to discover new ways in which to improve the human condition. I think that biochemistry is an excellent foundation for medical school, and that medical school is an excellent foundation for a worthwhile career. I have particular interest in the ways in which chemical compounds can be used to solve biological problems. Cancers are particularly difficult to treat because the compounds that will destroy cancer cells will also destroy healthy cells. If I am able to find a foothold in the field of oncology, I will make my way to the cutting edge. It would be an honor to curate treatments with more benefits and fewer side-effects. Attending a university is the key to unlocking all of this, so I am doing everything I can to do it. I owe my mother a great debt, and I intend on paying it back.

For a very long time, I was not sure what was wrong with me. The things that bothered me didn't seem to bother other people. The same thoughts that others could ignore left me bedridden. After a particularly difficult summer for my mental health, I began to see a cognitive behavioral therapist. Therapy helped for a while. My mood did not improve much, but I was referred to a psychiatrist who prescribed me two little white pills to take every day. This worked too. Kind of. A year later I was still wondering: what is wrong with me? Most people are familiar with the term "OCD", but few people actually know what it is. The popular picture of it often looks like someone washing their hands, cleaning their room, or organizing their closet in rainbow order. OCD can definitely look like this, but these rituals or "compulsions" often fail to reveal the deep fear associated with the illness. The fears of OCD are called "obsessions" and are caused by unregulated intrusive thoughts. Imagine that you're sitting in your room, listening to music, and you hear your dog barking at a squirrel. You don't pay this much attention; your dog barks all the time. But then, a thought occurs to you: "What if I hurt my dog?" You are not a violent person. You do not want to hurt your dog. It is as if the thought was placed there by someone else entirely. These thoughts are called "invasive", and everyone gets them from time to time. Most people can let these thoughts pass, but because you have OCD, you can't. Your fight-or-flight response has been activated, and your brain is telling you that something is very, very wrong. You ask, "do I want to hurt my dog?" and you're almost certain that you don't, but OCD cannot accept any uncertainty at all. You open Google. You ask "why do people hurt their dogs?", because if you can just rule it out as a possibility than these thoughts might go away. Google probably tells you a lot of things that don't apply to you, but perhaps one of the answers is "some owners hurt their dogs because they have unmanaged mental health issues". Then you're thinking "well, I have mental health issues. What if that's why I want to hurt my dog?" So, you Google some more. The more you research, the more scared you become, until suddenly you are barricading yourself in your room so that you don't accidently break out and hurt your dog in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, your dog is sleeping pleasantly because you're a GREAT owner and it feels safe with you. This is a subtype of OCD called "harm-OCD" and it is one that I struggle with immensely. I have lost countless hours to these irrational fears and compulsions. My Google search history is incoherent and ridiculous, consisting of long strings of the same questions over and over again. Right before I was diagnosed, my grades had slipped and my relationships were suffering. Eventually, I sought out an OCD specialist and began exposure and response prevention treatment (ERP). ERP has helped immensely, but I still struggle with my OCD daily. I'm scared of my intrusive thoughts. I'm scared of the things I do to keep my intrusive thoughts away. I'm scared to write this essay. I'm scared of the future and the past and the present and there is nothing that will change that right now. That being said, in the words of Merissa Meyer, "one cannot be brave who has no fear." I am going to continue on with my goals in spite of OCD, because if I do then maybe I can help others overcome the same thing. In a world full of stigma and anxiety, I will turn to hope.