Narrative Essay About Belonging

Laying down in bed the night before the meet was always nerve wracking, wondering who was going to show up to the meet the next day. The drive over to the track was often long and silent. Often thinking of every outcome of each race could drive a runner insane. Finally arriving and seeing all the athletes, spectators, and the crowd. The roar of the announcer echoing through the stadium. I stepped on the track hoping to see a few familiar faces. The cold breeze blowing against my tracksuit. I began to warm up and tuned out

On my way to the competition, as I always have, I inserted my earbuds into my ears and watched as our car passed hundreds of trees. Every gymnastics meet created such a sickening feeling in my stomach and made my head spin. My father asked if I felt alright. I lied and told him I felt fine. I jokingly said that I only imagined myself at the top of the podium; a first place medal around my neck. My parents tried to encourage me to accomplish this. Therefore, they promised a stuffed animal and an ice cream cone if I won. I made a half-smile because I doubted myself too much. If only I knew what would soon happen to permanently change myself as a gymnast. When I arrived, all of my teammates crowded around me and pulled me into the gymnasium. Because we were competing at our ‘home meet’, a gymnastics competition at my team’s gymnasium, I felt more comfortable. After warm-up, I went to vault. I did not feel pleased with my score, but

We were out for vengeance, and as the first heat came to a close, the three remaining teams lined up. Our team was Brandon Reid starting off the blocks, Isaiah running the second leg, me securing the third, and Bawa trying to end the race in strong fashion. As I loosened my legs up, the gun sounded, and I watched Brandon get off to a quick start. Before I knew it, Isaiah was 10m behind me and was ready to pass the baton. As I grabbed the baton from Isaiah, I noticed I was a few meters behind a kid from Avon. Never, ever again I thought. My legs planted and exploded off the ground in a simultaneous motion. I was like a cheetah chasing after a gazelle. As the wind blew through my cleanly cut hair, I began to close the gap between myself and the man ahead. In the closing 20m, I tried my hardest to catch the Avon kid, but I couldn’t. As I passed the baton to Bawa, my heart sank. As my chin dipped to my chest so I could only notice the ground, I realized I did not run the fastest 100m. At the end of the race, we finished second behind Avon, again. My arms tensed and my stomach dropped. Losing to Avon was the worst possible ending to my track season. However, my head would be picked up by a more important event that followed days after the Founders League Tournament.

I refused to ever let someone replace me on the track again. Not only did I earn that respect, I demanded it. My workouts were no longer a social hour, but a boot camp. I was the hardest working undersized athlete in the program. My junior track season finally arrived, yet once again I would not have the chance to compete for a junior varsity district championship. No, this year I competed for a varsity district championship. My efforts in the offseason led to a promotion on the team. The lingering emotions of anger and disappointment were replaced with gleaming pride. My previous failure had propelled me to success within a single

Identity-“Ones personal qualities.”Identiy is something only he or she can fully define. My uncle says I am affectionate,cheerful, and calm. My grandmother sees me as slim, pretty and sweet. My dad described me as perky, cheerful and happy, my mom says beautiful, gentle, and self-conscious. These adjectives describe me accurately, yet they are only abstract versions of me. Adjectives cannot begin to describe me and I aknowlege these descriptions for what they are, a condensed translation from my outward self to the world. It is impossible for anyone to understand me completely because nobody has experienced the things I have. My mother has never cherished a raggedy doll named Katie and my father never

The clamor of a gunshot resounds amongst the silent crowd; your feet bounce off the starting blocks, and with a sense of vigor you have never shown before. You soar toward the finish line, only to come in last place. At the end of the track meet, you are bequeathed a medal as a testament to your participation, and a reminder that although you lost you still get a trophy. As the year continues you accumulate a multitude of these awards; you decide that you should stop trying to improve your performance, because after all you still get rewarded when you lose. The track season comes to a close you're given a varsity letter for your participation, and from that moment on you begin to believe that even if you fail you deserve a reward. You go on to live a lackluster never reaching your full potential, and what more could someone ask from you especially since you participated. Toward the last years of your far from spectacular existence, you begin to question where your award for barely living life is, because after all you’ve been taught you always get a prize once you finish a race.

She sits on the armrest of her wine-stained couch, then falls backward with a cushioned thud. Her thick, kinky hair lays splayed under her. Her large, veiny hands lift up to her tear-soaked face, covering her eyes. She sighs aloud summoning her roommates’ attention.

Connection is the restorative force by which individuals reaffirm or transform their identities. Ultimately, it is the ability to form meaningful and sustaining relationships that allows individuals to assess and affirm their values. Raimond Gaita’s memoir, “Romulus, My Father” (RMF), Evan Hunters short story “On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ (OTSB), and “The Oasis”, a Shark Island Documentary, explore this notion through employing the universal themes of compassion, alienation and love as they enrich characters sense of hope, significance, comfort and security- fundamental to a sense of belonging, or paradoxically lead to a sense of isolation and exclusion.

This was an odd feeling. It feels good. Sitting around the table with Molly and David, eating our bowls of chili, makes me feel normal. It feels almost as if I wasn’t the son of a killer, the bad seed, or an abomination to this small town. I relish in the warmth of the laughter and sense of belonging. If only it could stay like this. For a short period of time the voices in my head are calm. They aren’t shouting about all of my flaws or telling me to end it. No one knows about the voices that I hear, only them and myself. As I sit in my chair watching I realize how found I have become of the two people sitting before me. Neither of them had any reason to associate with me, why would they? They could have treated me like the voices in my head

Concept, perceptions and ideas to belong or not to belong differ from person to person. This is due to experiences that shape ones personality that come through personal, cultural, social and historical context. The idea of belonging allows one to have some sort of connection and communal with people, places, groups, communities and the wider world. In contrast not belonging causes one to suffer from alienation, exclusion and marginalisation. As a result these factors can cause an individual to be at different states of depression depending on one’s personality and situation. However in society, belonging has become and essential to life. Many texts have explored the notion of belonging and not belonging; the play Rainbows

“I don’t what to go!” Mark shouted. “But you have to.” His mother responded gently, to avoid angering Mark further. “But why? It’s not like I learn anything there.” he exclaimed. “Well it’s not like you will learn anything here.” Mark’s anger grew before he left the room, slamming the do behind him. A few moments later, the doorbell rang. It was Mark’s Father, who had returned from work. “So, how did it go?” he asked. “Exactly what you expected.” “I see. We still have to send him there. Without an education, he will get nowhere in life” Mark’s father said. “But you know how he is. He doesn’t trust anyone. It won’t be long until he is picked on by the other students.” “But you can’t keep him here. You know that.” The two remained quiet

I snuck in to leave and get dressed. Just as I finished, however, the coach came in and questioned me. I didn’t want to admit to her that I was a failure, that I couldn’t do it, nor how embarrassed I was. I burst into a fit of tears and told her every excuse I could think of: “my mom made me do this”, “I fear drowning”, and biggest of all “I didn’t want to be here”. “It’s OK,” she comforted me, “everyone starts off somewhere”. But at the time, I couldn’t believe her. Everyone around me was so fast and capable; it was hard to imagine them in my

Growing up in a tight box that I always had to try to fit into, I never knew any different. The expectations, the standards, the cruel words and the harsh stares. Being an outcast amongst others or being verbally battered for reasons I could never fully understand. These were all aspects that were prevalent in my life because I was the Pastor’s daughter, and they were problems I had always viewed as a normality.

Very annoying! The only word I can say when I heard his name. His behavior, his act, all aspect from him made me felt annoy! Yup he’s my best friend from my junior high school. This annoying guy named Azie. I usually call him aji,kempet,bau and many other disgusting words. This man always does something that makes me laugh out loud. I’ll tell you one story that I’ll always remember about him, this story is the beginning of our friendship.

Sports were never one of my strongest points. I could barely make it above average in physical education class so I was perplexed when my housemistress selected me as one of the athletes to represent my house in the annual inter-house competition. Apparently the house was running low on athletes and no one was willing to volunteer for the javelin throw. I grudgingly went ahead with it since there was no way out of the situation: then began the most stressful weeks I had ever experienced. Since my experience in the sport was non-existent, I had to invest double the effort put in by the other athletes. Every morning, I woke up at four o'clock to meet the coach while my fellow mates enjoyed the comfort of their beds. Majority of my time was spent on the school field. After weeks of seemingly endless training sessions and aching joints, the day assigned for the event was finally here. The competition was very keen since most of the athletes were adept in the sport. I watched on as each athlete took her turn and I could not help but envy the speed with which they ran toward the sector and the finesse they put in their posture as they threw the javelin. Each time an athlete made the mark, my self-confidence dropped a notch. The previous quietude inside me was suddenly gone. In its place was an overwhelming feeling of apprehension. I felt a strong urge to back out and it did not help that there was a little pesky voice in my head that kept on