My name is Sarah Herr, and I am attending Shippensburg University majoring in communications and journalism. Since graduating high school, I have said this same line over one hundred times (no exaggeration here) whether it has been to family, strangers, or random adults trying to make small talk. I actually get a little excited when people ask me about my future because four years ago, I could not even imagine the day I would ever be able to say, “I made it.” Before you jump to conclusions hear me out. Now everyone has those memories and moments in life they want to put in a box and bury seven feet under the ground. After reminiscing all the stages in my life that have gotten me to where I am today I realized I needed to stop being in denial about the biggest part of my life. This is the point in life where I lost my innocence. I am about to dig up my personal box and unleash those memories once and for all. The series of stories I am about to tell are 100 percent real and have actually happened to me. I changed the names of the people in my story so they can remain confidential.
On Sept. 19, 2014, I was taken at three in the morning from my bedroom. I was awoken by two strangers in the corner of my room while my father was lurking at the doorway with a worried expression on his face. On the inside, I felt like my stomach was about to hurl up all the food I ate for the past year. My automatic response to seeing foreign people in my room in the wee hours of the morning was to cry. Oh, boy did I cry. The one stranger was a large man who looked like a bodybuilder for a living; there was a woman who was far less intimidating but she still struck fear in me with her stern expression. Confused and dazed I kept repeating, “What’s going on, what’s going on?” The woman started off by saying, “We can do this the hard way or easy way.” This line, in itself, was horrifying to hear. She instructed me to get out of my bed and change into clothing I would not mind traveling in. This resulted in me crying more and refusing to move. My whole body was shaking and I was fearing the unknown. I had a slight panic attack, not even my father’s words could calm me down. No matter how much I repeated the phrase, “What’s happening?” The only response I could get from my father was: “I am doing this because I love you.” I was definitely feeling anything but love at that point. Seeing that my pleas for answers weren’t being addressed, I listened to the woman and her instructions to get out of my bed because the last thing I wanted to experience was what the “hard way” was. After putting on an old T-shirt and gym shorts the two strangers proceeded to usher me out of my room. My face hot and heavy with tears. From my room they led me into their van. Keep in mind, I had no clue where I was going or who these people were so getting into a random van provoked the most horrifying thoughts. The woman tried making small talk with me the whole car ride. It felt like an endless car ride. Two hours later, I ended up in a terminal in an unknown airport.
I think back to how scared I was on Sept. 19. No true words can describe how I felt that night. I had a life, I had goals, I had aspirations. I was going 100 miles per hour and all of a sudden everything came to a halt. I couldn't make sense of what was going on and I still can't. In the moment, I was thinking why me, why now and what did I do to deserve this. Waking up to two people in my bed room felt like a scary Lifetime movie. I was a driven freshman at the time running for class president, involved in every club and participated in field hockey. Little did I know I would have all of that taken from me in one night.
The plane ride was rough. I had a million thoughts going through my head. I immediately thought about leaving my friends and boyfriend at the time. Would they miss me? Would they try and contact me? Will I ever even see them again? Then I thought about leaving my accomplishments at the time. Who was going to win class president? What is my field hockey team going to think? Will I be kicked out of the clubs I was in? The last thing I could think about was my family. How could do they do this to me? Things were bad at home, really bad but I never thought my mother's empty threats of shipping me away would come true.
