The first day of third grade I was anxious. I loved school as much as I still do at some points in high school. When it was lunch time, I was instructed by my teacher to sit at a small table by the window where the microwave sat for the teachers to warm up their food. I confidently walked to the now called “peanut free” table concentrating on the beeps of the microwave. My mom had prepared me for this since she demanded it from the principal. Within the first five minutes of sitting alone, hope that other kids with peanut allergies would join me vanished rapidly. I stared down the cafeteria where my class was sitting. There were only ten tables between us, but it felt as if an eternity was stretched out before us. I saw Caitlyn. She has peanut allergies!  Why isn’t she sitting here? That’s not fair. Not a surprise, I tried to choke back the tears in my throat without any success. The waterfalls came streaking down my face. The isolation hits hard. No person wants to be left out. Usually, the face of not including someone on purpose is a mean popular girl with her clique backing her up. Instead, the face was my mom. When other activities in the classroom involved peanut butter, such as, a peanut butter bird feeder. I would be removed from the classroom like the trouble-makers in the class. I made my goal to never “pull my card.” My card always remained on green. Ultimately, I was getting punished for having something different about me. My mom thinks she is the messiah of peanut allergies. She warned my elementary school that peanut allergies were only going to exponentially get more common. She felt it necessary to have EpiPens in every single school.  My allergies define who I am and I am beginning to try to detract this affiliation as much as possible. The inconvenience of having peanut allergies is stupendous.

All I hear from my mom on a daily basis, “Sierra, do you have your EpiPen?”
“Yes, Mom, sure do.” We both glanced at the door. I attempt to scurry out before she can add anything else. My mom knows when we try to cut her off all too well. She advances towards the door as I’m half way through it. I can feel myself being trapped like a fly in a spider web.

“Ok. I still don’t want you eating anything.”  I slam the door closed behind me as her voice
trails off. I sigh with relief. I am finally free of the lecturing for a little while. My ritual includes: always carrying my bulking EpiPens with me, eating before I go somewhere, reading ingredients of everything and most likely awkwardly setting the object back in Kroger when I read the word of fatality, and requesting restaurants to comply with my needs. Sometimes I’m stuck with eating rubbery calimore without the mouth-watering breading made from peanut oil. Also, I have to request the boys I like to not eat peanuts for the safety of myself. I have to be able to trust in them and restaurants that they’re telling me the truth. Everyday is a gambling game when I eat something. I sit in the car of the Dairy Queen parking lot with my mom in the passenger seat. My mom looks at me curiously. "Have you ever kissed a boy?” I break eye contact with her from the driver seat.

“No.” My mom makes the facial expression as if she buys it. I nonchalantly keep eating my cherry dipped vanilla cone. The vanilla slowly drips to my seat. I hurriedly wipe it off before my mom can  observe this.

“Sierra, you can never kiss a boy! I saw on the news what can happen. This girl kissed her boyfriend ten hours after he ate peanut butter, and she just died!” My mom takes a pause in biting off the hard shell of the cherry dip.
Is she just trying to use this as an excuse to scare me out of the urge to kiss, or is she genuinely concerned? Regardless, it’s still in the back of my mind when I’m with a boy. My ex-boyfriend ate pistachios right in front of me, but he denied ever eating them as he attempted to get closer to me. I still to this day have never admitted that to my mom. Since then, I’ve found a guy that has the same concern for my life as my mom does. Since I’ve started dating him, he refuses to eat anything that has any trace of nuts. He has substituted peanut butter for sunflower butter. So I wasn’t surprsied when he told me this story: He was with his best friend and second mom. They were looking for a place to eat. The mom wanted to eat a Five Guys (my worst nightmare since everything is fried in peanut oil). Boy reminded her he couldn’t eat peanuts. Mom says, “That’s not my problem.” She continues to Five Guys. Boy eats by himself at Qdoba instead. I’m touched by the boy deciding to eat at Qdoba because ulitmately I would never have found out. He gives me hope in humanity just long enough to be infuriated by this mom. A mom. She couldn’t give up her greasy fried food for one day to accomondate someone who didn’t want to risk his girlfriend’s life. Ok.

         When I was 6 years old, I stood on my bed towering my dad as he sat on the edge of my bed. I zoned out for a second in astonishment that my dad was even letting me do this. I gently placed a bunch of tiny, in proportion to my dad’s head, pink bows in his hair. My mom stood in the doorway probably admiring my dad for this. “Oh, we are going to tell all your friends about this.”
“Yeah, I’m so telling them,” I chimed in. My dad gave me a stern look. He pushed himself forward to stand up with the momentum.
“I won’t let you do it anymore then.” I grabbed his broad shoulders while he was half-way standing up. He allowed me to push him back down.
I promised, “No, I won’t tell anyone. I just want to be a ‘hair doer.”

The idea of being a “hair doer” followed me up to my cheer team freshman year. I French braided everyone’s hair before the competitions. I was good at something naturally just by looking up Youtube videos and self-teaching myself. So when the opportunity of an only 300 dollar cosmetology education in high school arose I was impassioned to try for it. The counselor confirmed I had been chosen to be apart of the program. I was washed with relief. I knew what I was doing in my life. This opportunity will allow me even more doors to open. The week before my cosmetology summer school was going to start; I went to the school to drop off my EpiPen. I was appalled to discover that all the product was extracted from nuts. I went nuts, breaking into a full on sob. The teacher with the crazy eyes that don’t look right at you stated in a monotone voice, “You’ll have to think of a different career.” The idea of discrimination suddenly crossed my mind. I’m not trying to say I’m Rosa Parks, but I had the same feeling swirling inside me. They simply didn’t want the responsibility or hassle of having me in the program.

Unfortunately, there’s an even more troublesome part of peanut allergies. It has the absolute power like a dictator to change your life dramatically. My cousin, Chantel, moved to California aspiring to be an actress and model. In Las Vegas, she was working with her friend to sell her scarves she designed. Her friend got them ice-cream. Chantel bit into the pretzel with a crunch. The pretzel seeped peanut butter in her mouth to her dismay.

Paramedics on site stabbed EpiPens through her almost spray painted on jeans, but the epipens proved to be no help. Chantel remained on life support for at least a month. A rainbow in the distance arched over the skyline to the side of the hospital. In her hospital room’s window, a ray of sunshine beamed through the glass. She could finally breathe on her own! This was a milestone for her in the right direction except it began to plateau off for the next two years. There were no other major progressions. Chantel is still being taken care of by my aunts, grandma, and my mom; she requires 24-hour care. She can’t do anything we all take for granted on a daily basis. She might not ever be able to strut in her 6 inch Louboutins as I watch in awe to be like her. She was the one who made me feel cool about having peanut allergies because I was just like her. Then it hits me. My cousin is the one on the news now trying desperately to reach out to people to help her, or it makes people react so they can be more aware. I am not my cousin. I am not peanut allergies. I am accepting the fact peanut allergies are a big part of my life. It’s crucial to value my life and prevent myself from being like my cousin. I am cautious, but I’m  never fearful. I put my own positive spin on what makes me different from everyone else. At the same time, I won’t let it hold me back from doing anything I want from now on. For example, I am going to try to go to a Paul Mitchell School for cosmetology that I can use product without nut extract. I can understand my mom’s paranoia on a new level.  My mom is the savior in my life.  The same school that my mom warned had an incident. A student had a severe allergic reaction to peanuts inside a granola bar. Luckily, there were EpiPens on site to save her life. My mom was potentially the reason this girl was spared from the tragedy. Now in high school, schools have improved on dealing with allergies. Everywhere I look there’s a “No Peanuts” sign. I’m no longer the one isolated. The nuts are.