Let’s start with my name, it is Michael Jason Saranko, but most people call me Mike. At the present time, I am a full time student at Hillsborough Community College, and a proud father of my son Alexander Nathaniel Saranko. From time to time, I often think about what my true goals are in life, and what I hope to accomplish by going to college now, and in the future. I have come to realize that there are differences between what I need to do, and what I want to do. In a few simple words one could say, “I do the things I need to do, to get to where I want to be in life.” Saying that has made a huge difference among the things I have chosen to write about.
To begin with, my for most important goal is to ensure my son has everything he would ever need and most of the things he may want, and to ensure his health and happiness. At the same time, I want to maintain a happy and healthy life for myself. In order to do so, one of the goals I want to accomplish would be to graduate from college, then pursue a degree somewhere in the field of law possibly becoming a lawyer. Becoming a lawyer has been a long time goal of mine since I was a child. I can recall times as a child watching my father at the law library studying case law to win, or get out of any lawsuits he may have been involved in. I soon came to realize law is just a bunch of paper work in defending a point of view for whatever reason a person may have. Basically, saying who ever did the most ‘homework’ for their case, and got the best facts usually won. Incidentally, an obstacle I am currently dealing with, and have had to try to overcome happened nearly five years ago on August of 2007. This event happened only two months after I had graduated from high school, and was in the process of moving into my own apartment to begin college. It was a normal day just like any other. Everything was going well as I was driving about to make a left turn to enter a gas station, when out of nowhere my life changed forever as I was involved in a motor vehicle collision in the middle of my turn. My vehicle was only traveling around five miles per hour.
As I turned another vehicle ran a red light and plowed into me going nearly sixty miles per hour hitting me on my right passenger side. The impact folded the passenger side of the vehicle onto the driver side. I suffered many injuries including, but not limited to a sub-dural hematoma, a right collapsed lung, and two fractures in my top two vertebra. I was very lucky to have survived, seeing how the top two vertebras I fractured controlled my breathing, and motor functions. Shortly after the collision, a homicide crew came to investigate my wreck as if I was not going to survive. The result, lead to me being in a coma for around eight days before I awoke to the worst head-aches anyone could ever imagine as my brain swelling receded. I awoke not knowing that this whole experience would change my life forever, but I soon realized as time progressed that it did. This experience to date would be one of the most difficult points in my life I have had to overcome. Many people have said to me that the person I was before my wreck, and the person I was when I awoke were two different people, but sadly more for the worst than the best. Around thirty days after staying in the hospital I was released, having to wear a neck brace for the following five months. I have had to overcome a great deal having to cope with the great strain of a brain injury that left me with seventy eight micro-mili-meters of hemorrhages throughout my brain. Basically, saying that seventy eight micro-mili-meters of my brain was damaged beyond repair, and I had to re-learn what I had lost. From this point on, some aspects of my life changed forever. However, the real long term goals I have always had since the beginning have not changed, but have become harder to achieve.
Another goal I have always had is to become a private pilot. Not to work as a pilot, but to fly myself, and friends from place to place. The year prior to my collision I was attending flight lessons at a nearby airport. But unfortunately, after my collision I lost all ambition to fly, for fear that I would not be able to perform my duties as a pilot. As time progressed, I have been able to overcome that fear. Currently, I have started flight lessons again taking one per week. As the years passed following my collision I lost all interest on the important things I needed to do in life to get to where I want to be in life. Mostly in the years following my collision I was in a care free phase in my life, because school was too hard, and focusing on anything was too difficult for me. It wasn’t until August of 2010 when my son was born I had realized I was taking things for granted I shouldn’t have, but also gave up on things I should have tried harder to achieve. My son has given me “that spark” I had lost since the motor vehicle collision I was involved in. I thank God for blessing me with my son; he is the fuel for mostly everything I do.
Overall, life is full of up and downs. No one should ever lose sight of the true things in life they want and desire. If you fall get back up, and push harder. My goals in life are to do good in college and someday possibly become a lawyer. While at the same time, being the best father I can be in every way possible. In the meantime, I am taking flight lessons to someday become my own private pilot. Everyone has dreams, no one should ever lose sight of them. In my view, life is about finding happiness in what I do, and fulfilling my dreams. Life is too short to stress over the small things. I try to enjoy every day as it could be my last, keeping my head up and moving forward in this dream I like to call life.