You Raise Me Up (Artemi Panarin)

47| Good Luck

Artemi

"Are you excited" I ask as I watch Valerie fix her hair in a small mirror in the room her publicist put her in.

"I'm excited... along with a lot of other things" she sighs.

"You're going to be great" I insist and she giggles.

"I'm not going out there to play hockey" she replies.

"I know. But I don't know what to say to the person who spent her whole life writing down her words and is finally speaking them in front of a live audience for the first time" I explain.

"Good luck works" she smiles and I roll my eyes.

"But you don't need good luck" I challenge.

"Doesn't hurt" she winks.

Today was the first time she was going to be talking to her fans and not from behind a camera screen. She had never done anything like this before and was a wee bit nervous, and I couldn't really blame her. This is a lot different than what she is used to but she's still a incredible person no matter if she's at home or here, so she'll be fine.

"If you get too nervous out there find me and talk to me" I tell her and she nods.

"See... now that is helpful" she teases and I roll my eyes.

She goes out to the stage and I find a seat that I had saved earlier in the front. People fill out the auditorium up here at northwestern university that was sold out. People were dying to see and hear and maybe meet Valerie. After all this was a pretty rare occasion considering that she's been free for about three months and two of those she was with me in Russia. Her fans understood how important that trip was for her and was willing to wait to see her. But now that's she's back she's determined to meet with as many people as possible and try to help them.

The clapping dies down as she picks up the microphone. There was a few thousand people here just to see her. She smiles as she looks out into the crowd and almost immediately her eyes lay upon me.

"You know, when I make my videos I don't ever script it. I have a theme or a idea then after that its just word vomit. But for this... whatever you want to call this... I tried to write everything down I tried so hard, but for some reason I got nothing. My paper was blank for four hours before I crumpled it up and threw it across the room.

Finally I realized that who I am, who I want to tell you guys I am, it can't be written down. I'm not even sure if I can tell you. But when I was trying to write down about my life and how I got here, I just couldn't.

Just like putting a price tag on things that are priceless, I can't put my life in words. I can try but I promise all I will have left is a blank piece of paper. We aren't blank pieces of paper. Just because we can't figure out what words to describe us or how we're feeling doesn't mean that stuff isn't important. The things that are hard to explain just means that it's such a huge part of you that you don't need to explain it. You don't need to write it down and tell it to people.

My life was pretty much a open book. There isn't a thing that's happened to me that I'm not okay with telling you guys. But I just need to tell you, not explain myself. No excuses for me being the way I am or me lying to make me seem different than I actually am. I just need to tell you, so that's what I'm going to do.

Hello everyone, my name is Valerie Taylor Walker. I am almost 24 years old, and for the first 23 years and 8 months of my life I had the genetic disease Autosomal Recessive Agammaglobulinemia or ARA. It basically means by body is shit at fighting off anything that isn't red blood cells. Any type of bacteria that I came into contact with I contracted and it was made ten times worse. A cold automatically turned to pneumonia, meningitis, basically a bunch of different really deadly illnesses and I was automatically sent to the hospital for at least a week.

To put it in the simplest way, I was sick. But I never really felt sick. When I was a kid I struggled with this all but by my teenage years I learned that I was not this disease. I was just Valerie Taylor Walker, The girl who had seen every Disney movie there ever was at least three times and I am a terrible singer. I can tell you how to identify different types of clouds because I spent most of my life looking out the window wondering what it would be like to fly among them.

We are who we are and we don't have to explain that to anyone. Not to your family or friends or the ones you love most. You do not have to defend yourself or apologize for the way you are. Love your quirks and your faults and accept them. This is life and there is no way to put it down. I live my life in front of a camera and there's still things that's hard for me to talk about. But I learned I don't need to tell it all, just what needs to be said.

Now I didn't come up here to preach about who I am. You guys know who I am. I came up here to tell you that you are exactly who you are supposed to be even if you don't exactly know who that is yet. Don't try to write your life down, I promise it won't sound right. So listen to your heart" she says.

They all clap again and she smiles as she looks around. I know she was really nervous to talk because it's not like she can edit out when she messes up like usual, but I though she did a great job. The crowd loved her and she spoke from her heart and not a piece of paper.

She sits down at the edge of the stage and does a q and a. She answers about twenty questions before she had to end it so the next thing could come in here. So everyone leaves and I wait for her by her car.

"I'm so proud of you" I smile as she comes over.

"Thanks. I couldn't have done it without you" she claims.

"I think you could have" I insist.

"Maybe. But I would rather have you with me" she claims.