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I was born December 14th, 2000, in Olathe Kansas. A completely ordinary birth to a completely ordinary family. The hardest part about having me was probably my name, as my parents couldn’t agree on hardly anything. It was a constant back and forth until finally, they could agree on Sydney. Sydney Elizabeth Ann Ball. Though, my middle name is a typo. Elizabeth was supposed to be Lizabeth, like my mother's true first name.

My first couple of years were probably just as simple as any other toddlers, eat, sleep, and having the attention span of a goldfish. As the first couple years became the first five, I started figuring out that I liked art, drawing on everything and using whatever I could to destroy our walls. Turns out I was just practicing for what I do today.

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Fast forward a good ten years and I’ve finally settled into a personality of my own, no more adopting the personalities of my peers in hopes of fitting in, just me.

I tend to have an abrasive exterior with sarcasm and dark humor, but despite that I know I would do anything for the people I care about in my life. I try my best to help, to care, to offer support or just give them a laugh. I like to believe I get that from my mother and her side of the family. They all are very caring, emotionally mature people who I know I could always count on if need be.

I also like to believe that I got my creative interest from my mother's side. In fact, I know I did. I grew up watching my grandmother paint and sketch and create. I would sit and watch her brush move over her canvas for as long as she could stand me. She was the one who encouraged my artistic abilities even when I thought I wasn’t any good and wanted to stop. I wouldn’t be the artist I am today if I hadn’t had her in my life.

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My art has changed much throughout the years. I’ve never really had a set style, I’ve always just done what I thought was nice at the time. As time went on, I found myself drifting towards Marvel, one of the biggest entertainment franchises out there right now. I started drawing characters involved in it, I bought merchandise,

I fell deep into the rabbit hole. After spending so long being enthralled with the franchise, I decided I wanted to be a comic book artist for their comic books. That changed when I found my way into stage makeup. I still wanted to be apart of their world, but now I knew that I wanted to be a different part, I wanted to do the makeup work for their actors. Marvel was even how I met my first serious girlfriend.

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Chapter 4: "I'm Really In Love This Time, Mom" 

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Chapter 4: "I'm Really In Love This Time, Mom" 

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It was art class sophomore year, I sat opposite of her. I’d always kept to myself in that class because nobody in there ever really piqued my interest and it was the one class I actually wanted to work in, but the day I saw her wearing a t-shirt with my favorite character plastered across the front of it, I decided I needed to compliment it. We started texting after that, just back and forth from across the room, giggling at each other. What blossomed was a great friendship,

We talked about everything, all day every day, and within a year, we knew everything about each other.  I still remember what led up to her asking me out. I had just begun getting into stage makeup and I’d been sending her pictures of the look I’d just done. She started getting really excited and flustered in her texts until finally she just asked. It felt like my heart had stopped and that time wasn’t real. I said yes. Time flew by after that, memories and plans made each day we spent together. We’d planned on getting two pit-bulls named Winter and Soldier, a pug named Mops, a hairless cat named Loki and all the houseplants in the world. We’d recycle, use cardboard straws instead of plastic ones, participate in trunk or treats at the end of the drive on Halloween. We had a whole future planned. I honestly thought she’d be the woman who’d become my wife. Though looking back now, we were just a couple of naive kids who didn’t understand that the real world wasn’t that simple. I was heartbroken the day she called it quits, it was like I was losing a future that hadn’t even happened yet.

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Even though that relationship had crashed and burned, I knew I could fall back on my childhood best friend. Brittany Wallace. We met fourteen years ago in pre-school. She has always had my back through thick and thin, even when I’m being a little crazy or unreasonable, been through every major event in my life, and been the person I’ve entrusted all my deepest secrets to. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it wasn't for her. I wouldn’t be funny, or compassionate, or love so deeply like I do. She taught me to care even when I didn't want to, to love even though sometimes it hurts. She has taught me so much and I’m sure will teach me

so much more. She’ll be the my maid of honor at my wedding, the guardian of my children if something were to ever happen to me, and the person I never want to see leave my life. She’s become family throughout the years.

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Ah, family. The people who will forever have free reign to embarrass you and somehow all know something about you that you don’t. Or sometimes, the people who almost accidentally kill you as a baby. When I was a baby, way young, didn’t even have my teeth yet, my parents left me in the care of my grandmother, the artist one, so they could go out for the night. She didn’t remember what exactly they had gone out for, but when they were gone, she thought that feeding me cheerios was a good Idea. My parents came home to me in my highchair, trying to eat cheerios, and failing. Needless to say, she was not asked to babysit again.

Even better, my father when I was around one, fed me a whole bowl of eggs right before we had to leave for a road trip. My mother tried to tell him it wasn’t a good idea but he insisted that I liked them and would be fine. Cut to an hour later and my mother looks in her rearview mirror to see me making an ‘I’m going to throw up,’ face. She couldn’t even get pulled over before, “they started spewing out one by one.” All she and my father could do was sit and watch until it was finished. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the reason I don’t like eggs.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the first curse word I ever said just so happened to be right in front both my parents after I’d gotten a bunk bed. Well, not a bunk bed, but a bed with a desk underneath, and they were trying to explain to me that I couldn’t sit up too high or the ceiling fan would hit me. So naturally, I responded with, “yeah, that would really f*ck me up!”  My mother still tells people that story sometimes.

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Chapter 7: I Wish I Could See Them Again

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Chapter 7: I Wish I Could See Them Again

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All of those stories happened way back in a little town called Paola. I grew up there, I met so people there that I completely lost contact with when I moved to Ozark. I was just so young at the time that none of us had phones that I could text and see how they’re doing. There’s not really just one person I could just wish to see again, I wish I could see everybody, see how they’re doing. I wish I could see the lives they continued to live that I had to leave.

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Chapter 8: High School, The Early Years 

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Chapter 8: High School, The Early Years 

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As much as I miss that I didn’t get to go into high school with the people I grew up with, I met some great people in Ozark, people that made high school less lonely that it could have been. Coming in as a freshman was terrifying, I’d just been dumped by my boyfriend at the time and my ‘friends’ had started getting into bad things. So I was walking in alone, so I threw myself into

schoolwork. More specifically, my artwork in my foundations class. My teacher that year was Ms.Polly. She let me keep the seat I liked the whole year and didn’t force me to be social because I got my work done. She made that class fun for me that way, I felt at peace in her classroom that year, my fear of failure coming into high school melted away. Sophmore year was the year I met Isabel Roberts. Not in school though. Online. She made me happy when I started slipping mentally. Somehow, no matter what the circumstances, she could make me laugh. Her personality just clicked with mine and it was just what I needed. Isabel helped me

become a better writer and showed me how I could express myself through my writing. I’ll finally be able to meet her in person this year for graduation.

Finally, junior year. It was kind of a null year, not a lot happened. Although, I did re-meet Danielle Chapman. I say re-meet because we met freshman year through a mutual friend, but she doesn’t remember it! I met her in conservation, needing a partner for an assignment and not knowing any other faces in the class. So I went to her, and she said yes, although not knowing me. She ended up being one of the funniest, quirkiest, and weirdest people in my life. I mean weird in a good way of course! Her spunky attitude and lack of shame has pushed me to take more risks and open up more than I ever would have if I’d never met her and I’m grateful to her for it.

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My senior year has been a wild mix of emotions. I’m paying my last dues, taking my last finals and doing so many last that I’ll never do again. It feels like I’m about to leave a part of myself behind that I’ll never get back, and honestly? I’m glad. I want to grow as a person and start doing other things. It’s so much different than I could have ever expected, I never thought I’d be scared of leaving this place. I was sitting for my senior pictures and I thought to myself, “this is really it, I’m done.” Even now as I sit here typing this, I have tears pricking my eyes as I go through all the memories, good and bad. This was a whole four years of my life, I’m leaving this building as an adult when I’d come in as a child. I’m turning the page and starting a new chapter, just like in this project.

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Chapter 10: If I Could Live My Life Over Again.. 

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Chapter 10: If I Could Live My Life Over Again.. 

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There’s a lot of things I have wished to change over the last eighteen years, little mistakes and relationships I’d never get into. Things that I wanted to change in the heat of the moment when I was feeling hurt or upset, but looking back at the grand scheme of it all, I know I wouldn’t change a thing. These things all taught me lessons that my family or friends couldn’t, things I needed to learn through experience. I wouldn’t change anything if I could live my life all over again, because how boring would it all be if it were perfect? If it didn’t have ups and downs? It would be monotonous. I would never change it.

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It's hard to tell where I'll be in ten years. I have a lot of hopes of where I'll be and what I'll do but there's no way to tell. So much has changed and so much will change. Though if I had to make a prediction, it would be that I'm traveling with the rest of my cast, doing the makeup for the actors and watching them work from the sidelines. Maybe Isabel will be travelling with me, maybe I'll be married. I have many hopes and only time will be able to tell where I'll go.