Morgan Sandlund '23 Recruiting Profile

Life Through a Planner

If you asked what I was like in fifth grade versus now, a junior in high school, am I where I imagined myself to be? An avid runner, AP student and someone passionate about mental health? Well, I can tell you, this is not where I expected to find myself. 

For someone who has been writing  every detail  into their planner since I was 3 years old, life’s unexpected turns are unwelcome and  put my brain into a temporary fuzz. Eventually, sorting through the fuzz  ends up challenging and shaping me. I’ve always been a planner, whether it be my anxiety or love of organization. Looking back into my planners from a young age, it seems so fictional. So what happened? Losses, new interests, old & new friends, a pandemic. 

Before the first day of middle school, my dad put forth the idea of “a new chapter of life”, and I imagined this would  include new friends and more academic responsibilities. At the time, my grandma, also known as Mormor (Swedish for grandma), was my best friend. Honestly, I still would consider her the best friend I’ve ever had. Unfortunately, she was a smoker whose life ended too soon which sent me into a dark period; a period where I felt like there would never be hope again. However, through the despair, an interest in understanding oncology arose in me. I had a new sense of compassion for people who had been experiencing cancer first or second hand with a loved one which provoked my interest in the profession. 

Throughout my years leading up to seventh grade, I was involved in a competitive gymnastics team. Similar to school, I always pushed myself to be the best I could be: the problem being the mental toll. Everyday my mind would continuously run in circles thinking, “what if I’m not strong enough? '' or, “what will happen if I fail and let myself and my team down?”  Every session, when I’d resign the form saying I’d want to participate in another season, I was not only signing up for the sport, but also the mental strain. In eighth grade, I started to reconsider my values and the state of my mental/physical health as it related to gymnastics. I never feel as if quitting is the solution, however my values laid elsewhere where I wouldn’t constantly be in agony about something that was meant to be enjoyed. After quitting gymnastics, I took up tennis for the next year and a half with my best friend at the time. After playing one season of high school tennis, winter rolled around and I began to consider taking the path my brother once took- becoming a runner.

Was becoming a runner ever in my planner? Definitely not. See, when I joined the track team, never did I expect to walk on to varsity, be running distance events, quit tennis to participate in cross country in the fall, or make the friends that I did. As time went on, running became a more important part of my life. Words including fartlek, progression run, tempo, hills and intervals began to clog my planner.  Although I’d still been new to the running world, I began to catch on and found myself being the happiest I’d ever been. 

Then the pandemic hit.

One word to describe this period of life: routine.  Most would think, what's wrong with following your plan? The issue was that I was obsessively doing my routine began enforcing a  negative mental toll on me. My point is that my plans brought me to one of my lowest points in my life; a point where I was lonely, miserable and overall not myself. How was I supposed to plan for this?

Once sophomore year rolled around, I was getting myself back on track to being my healthiest self. I was thriving during the cross country season and excelling in my virtual school work. Cross country and attending school from home were things never in my planner, but they allowed me to discover my inner sense of self discipline and organization. 

Fast forward to now. I still write in my planner. I still tend to obsess over small things. But the point is that these challenges I’ve faced have made me who I am today: an avid runner, AP student, someone passionate about mental health and medicine and of course much more that is yet to be determined.