My Experience In My Life

Football helped me find myself. My whole life I never knew who I truly was. I could never pinpoint if my likes, dislikes, opinions, or decisions were truly being chosen by my own mind, or if they had been solely influenced by someone else's. It felt as if my personality was created from a mixture of others, and it made me feel ungenuine, like a follower. Middle school was coming to an end and I was still absent minded of my true identity. Ironically enough though, before moving on to high school one of my closest friends, Juan, influenced me to make a life changing decision; joining the high school football team. It took some persuasion from him, but as always, I gave in and agreed to practice with the team. The first day of practice came quick and as Juan and I approached

After sitting down on the porch with coffee in hand, waves of nostalgia washed over me. Staring into my coffee, flashbacks ran through my mind. The old, yellow school bus rocked back and forth over the worn dirt path on its way to the orphanage that would be my home for the following week. The scolding South American sun beated down on the school bus as I began to question why I chose to spend my service requirement here. I tried to imagine the following week which would be wifi less, family-less, and air conditioning less. After a two hour bus ride, my team of 20 people and I arrived at Orphanage Emmanuel. Orientation and assignments filled the following hours until we all climbed onto our plastic mattresses and attempted to get some sleep.

“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 parents once told me that there are moments that can shape you, like getting your first pair of ballet shoes or lacrosse stick. But what they unwittingly neglected to mention, were the emotionally gripping experiences that can affect a person during their lifetime.

Every moment of accomplishment is success and there is one event in my life that stands out above the rest. I stood waiting in the psychiatric ward of the hospital, awaiting my father’s embrace. I was eager, but not ready to see him after months of waiting and wondering. Nevertheless, my palms were sweaty, arms crossed, unwelcoming to the unknown. This was the first hospital that allowed me to visit my father as a 12 year old because of safety regulations. My heart sunk as I walked into this unfamiliar place. I immediately noticed the eerie aura of the place. The walls were lifeless with no sign of photographs or memories--just a blank canvas of gray. It saddened me that this is where he was staying everyday without an escape. I saw people struggling with serious mental illness: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and clinical depression. It was a shock to see my father amongst patients who were clearly mentally ill. Despite my unrest with this new reality, I have found an undeniable interest in medicine and health after seeing my dad be prescribed many combinations of medicine trying to find the one that would counteract his mental illness.

Knowing who you are is an important step in life. Knowing your identity is something that is expected of you before you even graduate highschool. When students are being surveyed for acceptance, they are being chosen for what they have done rather than what they can do. Granted, what you have done is a good reflector of what you can do, but what you can do isn’t what you have done. I come from a family that values hard work and character. No one in the entirety of my family has any special diploma or fancy piece of paper that tells everyone what they are good at. No one in my family has any clue what I am writing about right now.

I was sitting in the plane going to where my mother lived when she was a kid, finally landing at the only airport in my entire state and the 45 min drive to my “home” I felt a new emotion I had never felt or known about at the time, anxious. First an outcast as an American with Indian heritage, but now as another outcast but this time as an Indian with American heritage. I recall on my thoughts that I had sprinting throughout my mind as the heat kept pounding against my skin. Not sure whether to be nervous, Thrilled, or homesick. It wasn’t the night my parents decided it was best for my brother and I to go to India and live there for 2 years it was that night, my first night sleeping without the same bed, power rangers bed set with yu-gi-yoh and Pokémon pillows that I had realized my life was never going to be the same.

It has been an eventful four years here at Christopher Dock. I went through a lot and I am proud of who I am becoming. I am not the shy, quiet and awkward kid that I was coming here but instead, I grew into a kind, confident and selfless individual ready to take on the world. Thanks to the adversity that I went through, I was rewarded with what I desire the most in this life: God, Friends and Family. The adversity that I had go through was letting go of my past, restoring my lost faith to God and stop being dependent onto my brother Tyler. Without doing those three things, I would not be where I am today. Now I would like to reflect on my growth throughout all of these four years.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

It was the beginning of summer after my seventh grade year. The sun was blazing, the birds were chirping, and I felt an overwhelming sense of freedom. Life seemed great, until the next day when I was bored out of my mind and had nothing to do. During middle school, I followed my brother, Isaac, around like a mime. Whatever he did I would aspire to do the same. This was no different when, bored out of my mind, I found out my brother was going to go disc golfing with the neighbor friends. When Isaac asked me if I wanted to come with, I jumped up, ran to my bike, and told him I was ready whenever he was. I had never heard of what “disc golf” was, but I knew that since my brother was doing it, it was cool! So I followed Isaac and the neighbor friends all the way to Northside Park, sweating immensely from the summer heat and from how quickly I was biking. On the first hole, Isaac gave me my own disc to borrow for the round. This sport was completely foreign to me, so I threw my disc as hard as I possibly could, in an attempt to impress Isaac and his friends. Not only did the disc go absolutely nowhere, but I threw it so high that the wind actually pushed it backwards. I felt humiliated as everybody laughed at me. Isaac, however, came up to me and explained to me how discs fly and the proper way to throw. Each hole, I could visibly see my disc traveling further than the previous hole. Every time Isaac saw me doing something improperly, he would correct me and tell me how to fix

The morning dew was still on the ground from the steady drizzle the night before as I glanced outside to inspect the weather. I woke up as usual that morning around three o’clock threw my sweatshirt on, stuffed my bag with a dry towel and suit, grabbed some breakfast, and headed off. I didn't rush this time frantically trying to make it there on time. Instead I walked to my car step by step as my mind slowly turned to mush from the feeling of my life slipping away. I knew that as an millennial older generations saw me as an sheltered child, coddled through all my problems. If only this was true I thought, oh how life would be different. I was being crushed by an ever growing pressure to remain swimming on an national level, but still obtain and function within my two jobs. On top of all of this school was to be my primary focus, but I was unable to effectively operate in my school work because of this consuming monster. To them though it's only two jobs, it's only swimming morning and afternoon, it's only school. To them we aren't teens or young adults but children who are given everything.

Life is full of discomfort. Each individual adapts to these challenges differently, growing and evolving into beautifully unique and complex human beings all across the world. How we deal with this discomfort, with the fears and challenged presented in life, shapes who we will be. When I was born, I suffered from both a heart murmur and talipes equinovarus, or clubfoot, a birth defect that turned my feet in on themselves. The early years of my life were spent in and out of surgeries, a time I know was taxing for both my parents, but for me my memories are full of idyllic rainy days in coffee shops as I grew up on Haight street in San Francisco. By the time my sister was born, three years after me, I could do (in my opinion) just about anything a normal kid could, and when we moved to Marin a year later I was proud of everything that made me who I was - I loved to draw, to collect stones and feathers, to garden and save worms and play with our dog. It wasn’t that life had been difficult and was getting better - for me, it had always been good. For me, I was better and stronger and more unique for what I had been through.