My Experience In My Life

I always have thought to myself how my mother can live up and always stay positive with her rough childhood and adulthood. One day I decided to ask her about her childhood and adolescence years. I then asked her, “Can you tell me about your background years?” She started off by saying “I was raised in a not so amazing neighborhood in New York, which was Queens.” I wanted to know more and get into her life journey even more, so we talked the whole night about her life journey.

I have only one life and I will use every opportunity to be successful and accomplished anything that comes my way. Because in reality no one is actually perfect to begin with.

“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.

Growing up I had a good life. I lived with my brother, sister, and both of my parents together as a good family. My parents really taught me how to be respectful and responsible. I was lucky to have them as good influences in my life. I am not one to disrespect anyone unless they have done me wrong. I grew up caring about school and always wanting to perform well and anything that I do. There were many challenges and events that helped me become the person I am today. One of which is when my family and I had the opportunity to visit our home country, Zimbabwe.

Until I was about nine years old, I never felt uncomfortable about myself. Sure I had funny glasses, large frizzy hair, and a smile which stretched just a tad too wide, but it was just who I was. Fourth grade seemed to be the pivotal moment where the issues started which would later go on to shape the rest of my life. It started off innocently enough. Who do you like, do you want to go shopping, can I paint your nails, etc. I would respond simply. I don’t like anyone, I don’t want to go shopping, no I don’t want you to paint my nails. I had no idea then, but these were not the answers people expected me to give. They wanted to know which boy I liked, when we were going to go shopping, and how I wanted my nails painted. Shortly I found myself spending most of my time alone. I didn’t understand it. What was wrong with me? Why did I not like doing the things other girls liked doing? I feared the answers that I might give, so those questions went largely unanswered.

In life, many times we face the most difficult obstacles. Never did I imagine that I would face a time in my life as challenging as the Summer of 2009. When I was in 4th grade, I found out my family and I would be moving to Broken Arrow. At first, I was so excited to go to our “brand new” house. It was then that I realized moving to a new city meant making all new friends, and basically starting over. I didn’t know what would happen at that point, but here I am 8 years later and I couldn’t be happier with my life. Moving to Broken Arrow was frightening at first, but in the long run gave me many new and exciting opportunities such as making new friends, becoming involved in my church, and making incredible memories in my school’s marching band.

“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.”

I woke up, and immediately regretted it. I had just been in a wonderful dream. That’s all I know. The dream was forgotten when I came around. I wish I hadn’t arose from my slumber. I could’ve just. . . died. Dying would be less stressful than my current situation. Oh. I need to introduce myself. I’m a fourteen year old named John Bernfield, one of the many—too many—Johns in the city I live in, Philadelphia. I have lost my family, my job, my home, and everything else I possessed.

During the years I was in college I did not attend organized religion unless I was home or visiting my grandparents. I did continue to talk to God and pray however. I was exposed to people of many different cultures and religions and was fascinated by their differences. This was a part of life that I did not have many opinions of my own and I think I just went along with which ever friend I was with at the time or whatever was popular. I attended Florida State University, which even then was big, and there was no shortage of cultural events, lectures and camaraderie among the students. The experience I had at this school was an awesome eye opener and did help me to begin to begin to consider what I wanted to be as a unique individual and the direction I desired my life to proceed from here. I met my husband and after I graduated we were married.

I was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala. I like to think that I’ve been blessed to experience so many different cultures, lifestyle, and diversity in Guatemala City amongst its people spending the first 6 years of my life and then moving to Belize. The change from only speaking and hearing Spanish every day to learning English after moving to Belize was a struggle. A struggle that I am so thankful I went through now because that made my transition much easier as I got to further my education to where I am now; a proud graduate and Alumni from the University of North Florida.

“Poke the porcupine! Poke, poke poke,” yelled my brother, Matt, as he jabbed his fingers into my ribcage. This game made the three hour car ride to Maine feel like eternity as the middle seat had my name engraved upon it (one of the perks of being the youngest child). My sister stared at the alluring landscape as we drove down the street, welcoming my family to Nana’s house. Pulling into the driveway, I am greeted by Nana, Papa, and Uncle Dave. My siblings and I immediately explored the backyard like adventurers in a new habitat. I traveled down a scenic path, welcoming me to the salty Atlantic. I paddled as hard as I can to keep up with my Nana and Papa kayaking. My whole family then took a hike, screaming every time we saw an apple tree. As we returned to the house, I washed my grass stained shirt and checked my body for ticks as I smelt savory lobster cooking. Crunching on corn and devouring my butter soaked lobster, I looked up at the table and saw a happy family: laughing about our hiking adventures and enjoying time together. As a first grader, I was thrilled to practice my reading skills to my Nana as she corrected my mispronunciations. Maine was a sweet escape, and I never wanted to leave. The only worries in my mind were the grass stains on my shirt, and removing the tick cemented in my leg.

As I'm writing this, we have just returned from a 5 day hospital stay. Life has become a series of doctors' appointments, tests, and hospital stays. This is life with a chronic illness. . . especially one of which not much is known. But life wasn't always this way.

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.

Some days you wake up and feel something is wrong, or you feel that something is going to go very right today. The date was september 4th, 2016. The day felt pretty normal, I got up, got dressed, ate breakfast and got ready for school. I go to my bus stop at 7:30 and right now it was 7:18. I decided to see how my fish was. I have an 60 gallon aquarium that held more than 50 fish. I gave them some more food and saw that my grandpa was going to put some decorations in the aquarium. When 7:30 hit I put on my shoes and walked to my bus stop. I had a good day at school, and I thought I was going to fail my science test. I actually I passed the test, I was so happy. My day was going pretty good until I went home.

As time goes on, we have the fondest of memories, good and bad. As for now they are just mere images, far in the distance with little glimpses of what we did when we were younger. As for me, I have a good family who cares for me, we went to many places such as Washington D.C. where my family and I had to walk in the blazing sun, a little bit more walking would of killed us. I also had good friends who would help me along the way. Showing me how to live my life and showing me things I had not seen before. As time goes on, it is important why we have these types of memories, and that is because we made the choice to have those types of experiences. Not some so called fate, but the experiences we make is due to the free will we have over the situation. That is why every story is so unique, because trying to replicate would be so hard to do.