Van Ree's Voice

I received an anonymous envelope yesterday filled with cutouts of my articles. The articles were filled with red marks either circling commas or “ands.”

Red words written on the pages depicted that I do not know how to use either of those grammatical staples and that my articles are filled with mistakes on the daily.

My boyfriend read the clippings and red words over with me, and his response after we were finished really got me thinking.

“Sometimes commas come into your life and you just have to deal with them.”

It’s true. Sometimes commas or pauses will be inserted into your life whether you like it or not, and you are forced to deal with them.

Sometimes things that are not under your control come into your life and make you pause from your daily routine.

And let me tell you, an inserted physical comma is nothing compared to what someone’s “life comma” could be.

Very few know of my biggest life comma or anybody else’s biggest life comma, unless they are famous, rich or a combination of the two.

I think that we can have both good and bad life commas.

For instance I think moving to Nebraska was a brief comma for me. I paused my life with my friends and family back home to move to a place that I had never even started a sentence in.

Since I’ve been here however life has already created so many new chapters for me that I never thought were plausible in my old story and in my old sentences.

This comma was very temporary. I soon learned to continue my life back home via long distance communications and to create a new life here with those I greatly care about.

I’m not saying that all commas come and go easily however. Some may jumble up your sentence and take a long time to get over.

Sometimes simple grammar can in fact change the whole meaning of a sentence. My favorite example is the sentence, “A woman without her man is nothing.”

Spice it up with a little grammar and BOOM, the quote reads “A woman; without her, man is nothing.”

Sometimes a life comma can change you drastically like that too.

Sometimes that pause in life as you know it is so hard to get over that you think you will never be the same person again. And sometimes you never are.

One of my own life pauses is not worthy of much detail but it was probably the hardest thing that I have ever had to overcome.

It left me in a state of limbo - mentally and physically.

Getting out of bed to go to class was a challenge, even for my nerd-self.

I wasn’t able to drive a car without feeling outside of my body and just shutting down mid-drive.

I wasn’t able to focus on homework, studies, friends, talking to my parents – I was what one would think of as a human shell of a body with only emptiness remaining inside.

I felt worthless, and because of that event (my comma) I felt that I was meant to be unhappy forever.

It’s how we get through the bad commas that define us. It’s how we carry on after that pause in our lives that may bring darkness.

The continuation of the sentence is what happens after we find light again.

Yes, some may think that I’m going a little overboard with my comma reference but we do all have those overwhelming pauses in life that make us wonder why bad things happen to good people or how we will get through the change in our life.

I continued my sentence by stopping what I was doing and what I was thinking and partaking in arts and crafts.

I wrote poems, I wrote short stories and I took what was once a bland door to my bedroom and I made it into a door of collages.

It featured collages of my work, pictures of my favorite things and lyrics to my favorite songs.

I engulfed myself in what I loved and realized that I needed to stop thinking about what other people thought.

I realized that I loved myself and who I was and that I wasn’t going to let any life comma change that.

Yes, I was different after my sentence continued again, but it was because I learned from the event and understood the world in a less-sheltered light.

I realized the comma didn’t define me, just as a simple misplaced comma in my sentence shouldn’t define my work. What really matters is the sentence and what the words were before the comma and after the comma.

You aren’t usually the same person after the comma, just like why a comma is there sometimes in a sentence – to separate ideas.

We all have our own commas, and those pauses in life are what keeps life different and people constantly on their toes.

Wherever your commas are placed throughout life, good or bad, I hope that you are able to overcome them and adapt. Remember to never let that life grammar symbol dictate how you finish the rest of your sentence.

Hannah Van Ree can be contacted at [email protected].