My Experience In My Life

Everybody has a mountain to overcome and it's your choice whether you stay stuck in the valley or rise to the peak. An in my life I've had a mountain that not only I have overcome but, learned valuable lessons along the way. The crux of my struggle was the splitting of my parents which put me through some emotional instability. This, in hindsight, was the best for me as well as my parents but being young and selfish I seen it as my world splitting in half.

As I grow older and live new experiences, I realize how my childhood and God led me to the circumstance I am now, which is my last semester of nursing school. I come to appreciate my mother’s hard work to get me through school as well as through life. Growing up in a low-income family in Los Angeles, California with a dad who was a full-time alcoholic and drug addict, was not a good circumstance to grow up. My mother did not speak English or had a job and believed that a married woman is to fully depend on her husband. There were times when my 2 siblings and I had nothing to eat since my dad barely came home with money after spending it all on alcohol and drugs. Due to this living situation and the fact that I was the oldest child, I felt the strong responsibility to drop out of school once I was old enough to work. Education was not an option in my future. Since we didn’t have much money, my mom signed my siblings and me to free afterschool programs at my local Catholic church, so we could learn more about our religion and the importance of God in our lives. I remember my excitement to wake up early Sunday mornings to get ready for mass, even though it took 2 bus routes to get to church. I learned from nuns and priests the importance of caring for others as if they were my own family because everyone deserves the same type of care. Caring was something I learned through religion, and not something I was born knowing. As a way to start fresh, my dad decided to move us to

My name is Alexis Lopez Sevilla. I am 19 years old. I was born in the State of Jalisco, Mexico where I spent fourteen years of my life living there. I am the second oldest and only son of four siblings. Currently, I am living in Long Beach, California, and I am attending Long Beach City College. When I was fourteen years old, my family and I arrived in this country. Coming to the United Sates has been the most challenging experience I have had so far, especially because I did not want to move away from a place that I loved so much, that was my hometown. Therefore, the first obstacle that I experienced on this journey was not being able to accept the fact that my future was going to be established in a place that I knew so little about.

I first became aware of myself as a unique human being about a month ago because of things occuring in my life. I had a lot of new things going on in my mind last year for the first time. I didn’t know why it was this was happening to me, I thought there was something wrong with me. This is how I became aware of me being different from everyone else. *Personal*

As an elementary and middle schooler, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. While my classmates seemed to know that they wanted to be an artists, firefighters, or teachers, I was completely unsure. My interests were wide-ranging and varied, and I could never imagine being stuck doing one thing for the rest of my life. Each time we were asked what we wanted to grow up to be, I gave a different response- from ice cream tester to marine biologist to mountaineer- never wanting to commit to the same potential job more than once. And this incertitude didn't seem to be something that I was growing out of- it continued until earlier this year, when I finally unearthed my passion, the thing I was meant to do with my life. In a single day, I went from unsure about my future to absolutely certain about what it would hold. It’s a day that I know I’ll continue to cherish for the rest of my life.

n I was 9 years old. I lived with my younger brothers james and my mother mary. We lived in Norwich on a farm. It was a beautiful place with fresh air and lots of crops.I had lived there my whole life until we had to move. One Day I was sitting in the kitchen cleaning the harvested vegetables for lunch and dinner when my mother came in saying we had to move immediately. She said that a rich man bought our land and we could no longer live there or work there. After a day in packing the next day we moved to manchester. My mother had heard there was jobs there and even me and my brother could work for some extra money.

I wake up to see it’s only around 7 AM, a considerably earlier time than usual for me wake up since it's a weekend during my junior year. As soon as I exit my bedroom I see my mom, at this point she had been having a hard time breathing for a few days already and today it looks worse. I can see her struggling and gasping for breaths almost. I decided to sit next to her and she says something along the lines of "I think I have no choice but to go to the hospital" I was shocked because she never goes to the hospital even when she feels horrible. The day before was the day that my mom had gotten paid so she hands me her purse and money when the ambulance arrives.

"Take a moment to think of just flexibility, love, and trust," has been my mantra for this whole senior year. It’s something I try to think about when I decide anything important in my life. Rather it’s setting goals for myself, procuring different interests, or choosing in right college, thinking about flexibility, love, and trust is how I try to keep my mind straight for the next couple of years.

On June 10, 2006, I woke up like any other Saturday, expecting it to be a good day of baseball. Little did I know, how much my life was about to be turned upside down. Getting the news that my father had passed away from a heart attack, at the age of 30, really took a toll on my family and I. I couldn’t let that stop me from having a successful life because he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. That meant it was time for me to step up to the plate and be a man, be a role model for my little brother, and also be the shoulder that my mom could lean on. Even though I was only 10 years old and in the fifth grade, I really grew up and matured since that day.

Despite how average my life has been thus far, especially compared to others, I have learned so much. Whether I was faced with minor complications or major decisions, I had much knowledge to gain. Regardless of the outcome of my actions, I simply reflected on what I had to learn and carried on. Because, regardless of whether I like it or not, time will continue forward, even if I’m not. If not my age, then it’s my experiences that define who I’ve grown to become.

Skrt Skrt! Dust blew through the air as Kiley and I sat in complete silence. Looking around in awe, I realized we finally settled somewhere other than the gravel road we started on.. Smashed and unrecognizable, the tahoe rested in the ditch next to my dad’s cornfield. What just happened? I vaguely remember my mom’s voice telling me in the past that parents set rules for a reason and although kids usually ignore not like them, they provide boundaries to ensure everyone's best interest. Cold and scared, I sat there shivering. I concluded that in this situation if I had listened to my mom, I believe I could have prevented this trouble. I saw my life at fourteen years old flash before me on November 19, 2016. This experience will live in my memory forever.

Maya Angelou once said, “What is the fear of living? It’s being preeminently of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility of yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.” Everyday I think about everything I went through while growing up and forming into the person I am today. Going through all the experiences I have gone through, I didn’t realize how much they would impact me today and serve as lessons. Today I am a freshman in college. I did not think I would make it this far. The precious gift of life is to enjoy every moment as if it is your last.

My life, or perhaps in the manner that I perceive it, has been overwhelmingly filled with enlightening and repressive circumstances that could have been averted, but all in all, makes up one's destiny. These events intricately tailored me into a young man that grew conscientious of the detrimental behavior of “acting before thinking” and into the realm of “thinking before acting". What I would soon come to understand was that through sheer patience, and trial-and-error it instilled within me new insights to learn from and that the most triumphant moments in my life began at the crossroads of unknowingness, a decision to stay in mediocrity, or the pursuit towards personal greatness- thus the decision had to be met.

Everyone has to learn some things on their own. Each individual person in the world has to find their own strength, their own reason to push through the hardships. Two years ago, I went on a spring break trip to Costa Rica with my local Spanish club. Furthermore, two years ago my life forever changed with the challenge I faced on this supposedly innocent trip.

When I look at how different our lives were five months ago so many things run through my mind, “What could we have done differently?” “What could I have done differently?” The week of finals before the end of my junior year I wondered if bad things really do happen to good people, or if good people do bad things that put them into bad places.