A Life Of Working Hard

When Andrea was younger she watched a show called American Ninja Warrior and she immediately fell in love with it. She went to her parents asking if she could go see them in real life. They told her they didn’t have the money to take her. Over the next couple of weeks Andrea was trying to find all of the scraps she could. She looked in the dumpsters at stores and if she found something on the street she picked it up. Andrea and her dad built their own American Ninja Warrior course but Andrea did most of the work because her dad had to be at work to support the house. Her mom was around but she wasn’t the best mom, she would look down upon Andrea, tell her that she will never be able to win, and it’s all just a fantasy. Despite her mom, Andrea started to practice as soon as she was done but she realized that it wasn’t gonna be as easy as she thought.

When Andrea was around fifthteen years old. She would still watch the show all the time and even watch the same episode over and over but not for the content she started watching where they put their foot when running the course little things like that. Andrea was watching how they ran the course and took notes. Andrea really looked up to one of the contestants whose name is Jesse Labreck. Andrea loved watching her run and always wanted to be just like her. She realized that she just can’t run the course and be great at it. She wasn’t strong enough to do the salmon ladder, this is when you have a bar and you have to jump up with the bar in your hand and go up the noches. She could barely do any of the upper body parts of the course. So Andrea decided to build a mini gym out of the old trash she had or new trash that she found.

As soon as Andrea turned sixteen her mom made her get a job so she could support the family with her dad while her mom did nothing. Andrea hated it at work because the people she worked with knew that she didn’t really have any money and they would be so rude to her about her dream of becoming an American Ninja Warrior. They would tell her that she could never do it. She won’t even get a chance because they don’t want some poor girl running the course and getting her poor hands everywhere. She hated that job but her mom made her go and when Andrea would get paid she would try to hide some of the money, but her mom knew how much she got paid because she would ask Andreas boss how much she was gonna get paid and she would take all of the money to spend on herself. After a few weeks of this Andrea forgot about her dream and was working everyday. She knew deep down that she wanted to be an American ninja warrior but she had to support the house and give her mom money.

At the age of seventeen Andrea had enough of it and she quit her job on the spot and told her mom that she was leaving. Her mom didn’t even give a reaction but Andrea’s dad heard that and he didn’t want to lose Andrea so he left with her. They moved out of state and her dad told her that he has been wanting to leave her mom and that he was saving up money for them both to leave. They ended up moving to Colorado where they bought an apartment and her dad got a job there that paid pretty well. Andrea bought a membership to an American Ninja Warrior gym. She went there almost everyday trying to remember how she did it because she forgot all about it for a year. She started watching the show again and her favorite contestant was still on the show and she was so happy to watch her run again. She would take notes again how they ran the course like she used to when she was younger. She would even take videos of herself running the course at the gym and would compare to the other runners. She got a part time job and the people were super nice and supported her about her dream.

One day Andrea was on her way to the gym and she got a call from a random number she answered.

“Hello.”

“Hi, is this Andrea?”

“Yes.”

“Hi Andrea I’m one of the executive directors of American Ninja Warrior. I have been receiving videos of you running a course like ours. I was wondering if we can fly you out here for the next competition in a couple of months?”

Andrea was freaking out but she wanted to keep calm.

" Yes, that would be amazing. Thank you so much for this opportunity.”

They talked a little bit about a few things she would have to do beforehand. Once the call ended she ran straight home to tell her dad. She was also confused about who was sending videos of her because she never did that.

” Hey dad guess what-”

She saw her dad laying face down on the floor. She ran to him to see if he was breathing and she didn’t feel a heartbeat so she started doing chest compression and called 911. When they got there they tried to bring him back.

" We did everything we could but he didn’t make it. We are sorry for your loss.”

Andrea broke down crying how was she gonna get through this he was her savior. She was like a ghost for a few weeks. She barely ate and was silent at work, she even stopped going to the gym. One day she decided to go into her dad’s room to clean some things and she found a letter in one of the drawers and it had her name on it. She read it and it basically said that he had a heart condition and he knew it was fatal and he had money saved up for her to be comfortable enough for a while. It also said that he was the one to send the videos because he wanted to help her out before he passed. She broke down again but it wasn’t because she was sad, it was because it gave her hope again.

The night came and Andrea was in the back stage of the American Ninja Warrior course she was waiting for her turn. When she heard name get called she knew it was time. She ran up and waved to everyone and then she focused on what was ahead of her. The first obstacles she faced were the quintuple steps she flew across those. She was flying through the course. She was so proud of herself and then came the salmon ladder, she always had trouble with this one but she had gotten better. She went up the first two and had no problems but when she got to the third one she was starting to have some trouble. She went for the fourth one and missed the bar and fell in the water and she thought it was over. She was so disappointed in herself, she had to talk to the interviewer for the show. After she was done with that she was walking in the backstage area and she was just sitting there watching the other contestants run and someone came up to her and said great run she looked up and it was Jesse Labreck.

“ Thanks but- oh my god JESSE LABRECK! I have been watching you run since I was little. I look up to you and always wanted to be you. I am not very proud of my run, I have been working for so long for this and I screwed up.’’

“You’re going to fall off the ladder, but if you don’t get back up, what is the point climbing it?”

They waited for everyone else to finish and Andrea ended up making it to the next round. The player after her messed up and fell a couple obstacles before she did. She was shocked but so proud of herself. She knew that it was only the beginning of her long journey.