Growing up it was always tremendously hard for me. My life was always at a disadvantage and it felt as if i was never completely happy. When i was five years old, just graduating kindergarten and going into first grade, my parents split up. I was never given the opportunity to chose who i wanted to live with, so my mom gained custody of my twin sister and i. I obviously was only five years old and i was not capable of understanding what was going on at the time. As i got older, it got harder for me. My parents had always put me in the middle of situations. My mother did not communicate with my father and therefore they made my sister and i the messengers. It was always a sticky situation and i never wanted to be in the middle of it. Every …show more content…
I was not aware of anything that had happened and i was in and out for hours at a time. I was rushed to Saint Francis hospital where they tried to perform surgery. I was then transferred to Westchester children's hospital when i was put under for the third time. I had to wear a full leg cast for six weeks, following a half leg cast for four. My mother was beyond furious with my father for letting his child race that day. She was not aware of it and had no idea i was in the hospital until 6 hours later. After that incident my mother never agreed with anything my father did and in fact did not want me spending time with him. I of course still saw him whether my mother like it or not. My father had gotten married and soon began to distance himself from his kids and never saw how it affected my sister and i. My step mother's children were all three years to five years older than me. Her youngest son was not the nicest out of the bunch, and he had this sort of attraction towards me. I never saw the difference between right and wrong and how a step brother should act towards her step sister because i was only about thirteen at the time. My step brother would pick on me in a different kind of manner. He would lock me in his bedroom with him and tickle me to the point where i would be screaming to let me out. I did not know at the time that it was wrong, until a year later when i came out and told my mother that he was sexually harassing me and i wanted it to end.
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*
The idea of flying has terrified me since a youthful age. Being in a metal bird, thousands of feet above the ground, that consumes me from one location to the next safely, doesn’t sound appealing. A pilot, who I could only hope knows exactly what he is doing, has my life in his hands. When I found out that I would be taking a helicopter to prom instead of a nice car, I honestly believed I was having a nightmare. The one entity in the entire world that scares me the most will be my transportation of choice for the ultimate night of my adolescent years.
During my childhood I was mainly raised by my mom, dad, and my two half brothers ,Matt and Taylor Lambert, who I basically just considered my brothers. I always thought of it this way, because they never really went to there dads house. So us three kids were mainly raised our whole life by the same parents, but somehow we all ended up with completely different personalities. Taylor has always been really book smart and a social butterfly, Matt has always been the jokester and the one who gets in trouble the most, and I’ve been the more quiet one who observers what’s going on. How we all ended up so different is question I wonder about all the time. My mom was never really into to punishments, and neither was my dad. My dad was more into life lessons talks that would go on for hours. If one of us ever got into trouble,which was mainly Matt, my dad would sit all of us down for a life lesson talk. My mom would usually have to intervene and tell my dad that the kids get the point. Otherwise my dad would talk the whole entire day. I believe the reason why Matt was the one who got in trouble the most was because everything he did was loud, and he wasn’t very sneaky. One time he got some fire crackers from a friend and left them in his pocket. So when his pants went through the wash my mom was not to happy. Also, Matt would always make fun of Taylor in the most obnoxious way just so Taylor would fight him. Why he did that I don’t know, because Taylor has always been the stronger
I love to learn. I think of knowledge as having your very own super power, however I do not like all the unnecessary negative aspects of high school. Everyone says you’ll look back and wish you were still in high school; so do not try to grow up too fast. High school has opened my eyes to what is most important in my life. Every difficult experience with the help of my grandmother has shaped me to develop the willingness to look inside myself and to believe in myself.
During the Summer of ***** I made my way to training camp. The sweltering Summer air was unforgiving. It felt like a cloud of heat was just entrapping me wherever I went. I had to travel for what seemed like days to reach the training camp. The buses were infrequent and covered in filth. The insides of those buses were almost twenty degrees warmer than the outside. I literally fought people to be next to the windows because I was sure that if the bullets weren’t going to kill me, the heat exhaustion would. After what seems like years in that awful bus (Mule) I reached the training camp.
“Still there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have travelled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I’ve slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”
As a child, I had a happy family. My parents got along well and my father ended up buying a pizza restaurant after we moved to Myrtle Creek from Pendleton. When I was around five years old, I noticed that my parents began arguing and not sleeping in the same room. Because I was so young, I did not quite understand what was happening. One night, my parents sat my brother and I down and told us that my dad would be moving out. At five years old, I did not really understand what this meant. My parents went to court and decided that my dad would get custody of me and my brother every weekend. About a year after my parents split up, my mom decided to start dating again. It was not long until they decided to get married. Not soon after that, my mom found out she was pregnant. At this time, I was seven and my brother was 13. When my little brother was born, everything was good for awhile. But once my brother got into high school, things took a turn for the worse. He began using drugs at parties his freshman year. He was not addicted yet so my family had no clue. At this time, my uncle was diagnosed with Leukemia, which was a huge tragedy for my family. My mom had a toddler and was
“Are you excited for your trip?” my mom asked me. “I'm not sure,” I replied. I had never been on a school trip, and I wasn’t sure how it was going to be. Ten days spent in Greece, would be, to say the least, a bit of a stretch for my exhausted brain. I was fresh out of the eighth grade, the official worst year of my life to this date. I had asked myself over and over why I had chosen to go on this trip. I was tired, and wanted to just be alone for the next two months, but I knew that I had already committed to it. I tried telling myself that it would be a good experience, that I would fulfill my childhood dreams, but I didn't believe myself. My mom asked me why I wasn’t sure, but I said nothing more than “I don't know.” I was unsure of how to feel. How I should feel was clashing heads with how I did feel, and it was all too much to bear. I felt sick with guilt.
I’ve grown up in Louisiana all my life; born and raised in the River Parishes where the seafood and industrialized oil was abundant. I never remembered how I came accustomed to the southern lifestyle or how I managed to learn how to fish or skin a rabbit, for it just came naturally. I assume it was because I had lived here all my life that growing up by the culture, in turn, enhanced my southern styled skills. The puzzle pieced itself together, when my friend Adriana came to visit from Minnesota. We were pen pals at the time, but coincidentally, she had close relatives in St. John the Baptist Parish. One summer evening on her visit, we had a seafood boil which consisted of crabs, shrimp, crawfish, corn, sausage, and turkey neck. Now me being the lil’ ole’ Louisiana girl, I happily peeled my seafood with ease and dug in. However, I had noticed that Adriana did not touch her seafood. Her Auntie Kim had peeled all of her seafood for her. I was curious as to why Adriana did not know how to peel seafood; It was an easy task! Nothing to watch out for but the sharp claws and doubling checking for any shellings. Peeling seafood was like the ABCs for me, so why not for Adriana? I was 10 at the time, but now with age, it has come to me that not all Northerners who have yet to visit the south, do not know how to peel these weird crustaceans or to scrupulously eat clean a turkey neck to the bone! They couldn't fathom the thought of eating something that previously lived in the wild mud
Every person has a story to tell. As in the form of a distant memory, as a recent experience, or even as a fictional fairy tale, we all have a story to speak. But some of our greatest adventures are never spoken out loud. As of fact, most of these experiences happen within the blink of an eye, so our brains cannot grasp, and hold onto them forever. Some of these are the greatest moments we might have in our lifespan. Just a loving kiss from a sick loved-one, or the pleasant “Good morning” from a regularly unsociable neighbor are the moments we hope to savor as humans. But sometimes we cannot because of this. If there were a line for those who have experienced this, I would be the first to say that this happens every day of my life. Here are some of my experiences.
Early morning glaze slips through the drapes, reflecting off the crystal collection that's rooted on my windowsill. The specular reflection of light urges me to open my eyes, drawn to the washed out rainbows projecting onto the pristine white walls. I sit up. With feet lightly resting on the carpeted floor I begin to feel energy rolling through my veins, waking up my toes, my calves, into my stomach, up through my chest, reaching the span of my arms and deep into my mind. Taking in the first breath of day through a long winded stretch, I begin making my way towards the other side of the room. I stare blankly into what seems like the ocean, deep and belonging to more than one place. The mirror is telling me that my eyes are like bark, dark, earthy and brown. My hair curls like the spiraling spine of the native koru and my winter woolies melt into the lovable curves that are my body. Aging gracefully, some would say, but that isn’t what I would say. I would say I am a misplaced key, one that is desperately desirable yet so easily discarded.
During my first semester as an undergraduate college student, Santiago, my best friend and boyfriend, passed away. The flight from Denton to Dallas was not quick enough. Just as he took his last breath on the emergency room, the plane landed. At that moment, I had felt as if half of myself had died along with him. Life quickly forced me to encounter a difficult trial in my life; the death of a loved one is one that few learn to overcome. Death is a reality, hardly any truly know how to manage or if it is even manageable. Four years ago, at that exact moment, I had lost hope on dreaming. I refused to continue to dream since I felt it had led to nothing the first time. My dreams of one day spending the rest of my life with Santi had died along with him. At that moment I couldn’t see any dream ever coming true. However, just as life can throw us curve balls, it can also teach us how to aim for them and send them flying away.
My life started like many American boy lives, easy childhood, fun adventures, and an affinity for cars. This charmed life was soon brought to a halt by the introduction to school. Previously the only social interactions were 30 minutes in the park or other gathering where my parents crossed paths with another couple with a child of similar age. This short meet and greet lead to some very weird situations, one that was most memorable encounters were with this 4-year-old, very thin girl at a library. At this particular library, there was a play structure where the parents could drop their kids so they could browse in peace. Having been dropped off, I was promptly greeted by a girl who said with a straight face, “I have a small ass which is good” which threw me off. Being 3 at the time made the situation even weirder. The other problem was at Three I was looking for the truths of the world so I accepted that a small ass was a good thing along with the other very suggestive things she said at 4-year-old. These truths stayed with me for a minimum of 3 years which includes my first year of school.
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.
One hour later, and my life became changed forever. My loving and caring family I bonded with would no longer be the same. The long walks with my mom in the evening would soon become a distant memory. Decorating for the holidays was just around the corner and I would have to hang up the stocking on the chimney without her. The sweet, rich, chocolate brownies she made every Friday night would leave my taste buds empty. Her hugs that made me feel loved when I was sad would now be a thought in my head, and our long talks about growing up and finding my way would be cut short.