My Experience In My Life

“Tough times don’t last, tough people do” - Julian Edelman. Throughout life I have overcome obstacles that seemed almost impossible to conquer. Crying, fighting, searching for a way out of my life that has haunted me for eighteen years. I thought I would never live to see this age, but here I am today, standing tall and proud amongst others everyday. The lessons I have learned and experiences I have gone through have built my character, gave meaning to my visits back home, and have helped me find ways to keep myself busy with free time.

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.

The story began about a year and some months ago. Early in the Fall 2016 semester, I met a girl named Ann through a friend of mine. My first impression of Ann was that she was very pretty, but she talked a lot. I mean a lot! After I met her, the three of us began to hangout a couple of times each week. Even though she talked a lot it was fun having her around because of the energy she brought to any situation. At first, I felt that being around her drained my energy, but I eventually got accustomed to it, and grew to feed off it.

As I boarded the charter bus to my second year of Unidiversity (an annual summer youth trip in Tennessee), I could not begin to imagine the person I would become as a result of this trip. As a teenager going into my last year of middle school, I was determined to have the time of my life. I wanted to have fun, make a better connection with friends, play games, laugh, and really enjoy the time with my leaders and friends. At this point in my life, I was hiding a dark secret that only two other people in my life knew about; I was bisexual. As an almost eighth grader, I was comfortable with my sexuality, but I didn’t know how to explain it to others, and although I knew my friends would accept me for who I was, something was holding me back. I would walk around hiding behind I mask that I thought was permanent, a mask that told everyone that I was one thing, when I was really another. Little did I know that I was about to rip off the mask, and show my true self for the first time in my life.

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.

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.

“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 lean against the hospital bed reflecting on my life and where it would now lead me. I have just overdosed on a painkiller and I thought my life was over- no hope, no friends, and most certainly, no support. Or at least that is what it felt like. I was at a time of my life where constant bullying was occurring and being in a small school at the time, there was no place to escape. In my mind, I thought the only way out was to vanish from this world completely and so I snooped around for a bottle of pain killers and took the whole bottle.

As I walked to my cold seat at my desk, I stared at the teacher who was lecturing us, I was in a trance of wandering thoughts.Had this reverse in my life's polarity really benefited me? I noted it to be a mixed blessing. Why had God put me in this funny position anyway? I sometimes felt so alone in what I was going through. My classmates just can't understand what's been going through my life.To them my change in character meant very little or practically nothing. I have already felt completely isolated once in my life.

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.

It’s hard to imagine what your life will be like, where it’ll take you, or what the future holds for you. If you told 13-year-old me that I was going to be on the path of 8 more years of schooling after high school, working towards a medical degree, I probably would have laughed and repeated the line that I have said so many times: “I’ll never become a doctor...that’s so gross”. At that age, my dream was to become a pastry-chef in a patisserie somewhere in the south of France, living life peacefully. I thought that I could never follow in my parents’ footsteps, sacrificing the best years of my life for the all-consuming difficulty and intensity of the pre-med track. And it is very intense. If you ever come across a pre-med student, they’re likely stumbling over the clutter of their biology textbooks and boundless research papers, frantically searching for the cure for some disease that no one can actually pronounce, all the while cramming for the MCAT that’s in 912 days because they have not yet memorized every bone in the human body. I’d like to dissociate myself from that stereotype. While most aspiring pre-med students were worrying about medical school acceptance rates, I was dreading my dad’s weekly case-study reading that he absolutely had to have my opinion on. Not to mention the countless visits I made to my mother’s work Christmas parties, where the nurses were constantly dressed in their scrubs, and I mean constantly, and the food unmistakably came straight from

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.

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.

I was 16 when it happened. It was a surprisingly warm December day in 1994 in Bangladesh. It was already past dinnertime. My dad ran a little bit late from work, since so many people were out enjoying the nice weather. My dad owned a tailoring shop downtown, and it was always pretty busy, since most Bengali stores at the time didn’t sell stitched clothes. My mom and my three siblings went ahead and ate, but I waited for Dad to come home. We always ate dinner together, no matter how late he came back. When he finally came back, it was almost 9:00, so we decided that we were going to eat dinner while watching TV. We watched Looney Toons together. I asked him if he had any wacky customers at the shop. He jokingly tried to convince me to switch from pursuing biology to English. It was running gag between us. Anyone who knew me knew I sucked at English. After he finished eating, he got up to take his plate to the kitchen. I was finishing up my food when I heard a crash come from the kitchen. I ran to the kitchen and I saw my dad collapsed on the floor. I yelled for my mom. We quickly rushed him to the hospital. The quickest way to the hospital was by rickshaw. My mom, my brother, and I kept yelling at the rider to go faster. We finally got to the hospital only to realize that he was gone. He had died of an ischemic stroke on the way there.

At this point in my life , if i review my previous experiences i would say that i am fairly pleased. I've been able to gain numerous life and academic skills through hard work and determination. Though many of my experiences haven't been pleasant ,in a way it has helped me grow and build my character as a person.