Personal Narrative

I arrived at practice with my shoes laced, hair pulled back, and the mindset that I was unstoppable. I could play against every member of my team and come out the victor on any given day. It was the first day of practice that week, and challenge matches were scheduled to begin. The team went through our daily shuffle of drills, conditioning, and running to prepare for what was lying ahead. While warming up with my friends, I felt great, talking about homecoming, boys, and a variety of irrelevant events. I felt ready. The odds were in my favor and nobody could stop me.

Were I to name one thing unique about me, it would be that I’m one of the only people I know who can say from experience which is more difficult; writing a personal essay or surviving a life-or-death, take-no-prisoners spy shootout, complete with a crowd of bad guys, laser guns, and of course, a hero and a sidekick. I’m the sidekick.

I think about it for a moment. "Thanks for the offer babe, but I'd rather fly this one solo" I reply to him.

In late September of 2010, was the year I learned a new word “Depression”! I was in 1st grade and everything was fun because I had no responsibilities or worries. I didn’t know how to feel grief for a long time because I was always happy. I didn’t know that a family member could own a child.

You’re forced to watch the canvas of the inside of your eyelids come alive with painted memories as you step – unwilling and afraid – back into the war. You’re hauled around in a body that doesn’t feel like your own anymore, forced to relive and repeat every step, every breath, every decision, a thousand times, and a thousand times

Hearing the sounds of people breaking in half a wooden slab with their feet and cries being shouted out, I hesitantly entered the Dojo, placing my sandals in a cabinet. Dreading the smell of feet and sweat I didn’t enjoy coming. Not only was the smell bad but the physicality that was required was discomforting. The hits that my back and ribs received from missed side-kicks and jabs was unbearable.

I wake up at 5:30, five days a week, and each time I try to cram in five extra minutes, I end up having a late start to my day.

It was 2:00 AM and I was working 3rd shift that night, it was lonely and dark. I was the only one here. As I sat in silence the phone rang I picked it up not expecting anyone to be calling because I haven’t had a call in years. When I picked up the phone all I hear is a deep soft whispering, I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Every second the whispering got louder and louder until there was a high pitch screaming. I slammed the phone down on the receiver with a rush of adrenaline. My heart was pounding so fast it felt like it was going to burst, (the reader takes a deep breath to build suspense) agin I sit in silence, waiting for something to happen. I was so paranoid I didn’t know what to do, my mind was racing, do I leave or do I

One Saturday morning I woke up to go hinting as usual every weekend. I climbed out of my bed with a good night’s sleep and got dressed. I made my way to the living room to drink some coffee with my daddy. It was in December so it was pretty cold outside. I sat around for a few minutes talking to daddy and watching the news on TV. We were arguing on who was going to hunt the “creek stand” as we call it. It’s a old box stand down a really long over grown trail that has been in the family for a long time. It is located in the wood yard hunting club in Angie, LA, my hometown. We finally got finished arguing and he said I could hunt the “creek stand”. So I went to my room and grabbed my Remington model 770 .270 caliber rifle with a 80mm Nikon scope,

For a while, I had been running away from the terrifying incidents. All I saw were men with big guns and people shooting. Everyone had a curfew. No one got out of the house after dusk. Life wasn’t the same, school wasn’t the same. My routines weren’t the same.

In that moment I realized the world isn’t all friendship and giggles. I never expected to see or hear someone so cruel before in my life, I thought it only ever happened in the telenovelas my mom and watched after she picked me up from elementary school. I could see Skylar, the new student in my kindergarten class, talking with an upperclassman behind the tall metal slide. I barely heard the introductions, but I could clearly hear when the upperclassman laughed. He laughed at the name that the boy was given. I didn’t expect what came out of my mouth, and they certainly didn’t either.

In San Francisco, about a year after my mother died, when I was nine or ten years old and going to the second new school since moving in with my father, I had a desperate crush on a girl named Lisa. She was a year older than me, in the next grade level up (our classrooms were combined). She was pretty, Asian, was popular with a group of friends that would surround her during recesses.

It had been around 42 days. I had no way to know when the sun was rising or setting; I only had my sense of time. They came in every day and gave me a small loaf of bread, some sort of meat, and only enough water to wash down my food. It was not enough to give me strength only enough to keep me alive. I was not sure where I was or even how I got there. The only thing I knew was that I wished I could go back home to my loving family.

Everything that has a beginning has an ending, never have I thought to myself that my ending would be losing the family I grew up with for over 20 years. The car accident which took all their lives will forever be encrypted in my memory until the day I take my last breath on this world. I warned my father it would be dangerous to take the entire family upstate in a van but he just yelled at me. That's something I never appreciated about my father, having a different opinion than him would just lead to him yelling at me and starting a massive argument. I called him a bastard and left him with the rest of the family. That was the last thing I said to my father, now I lie here, organizing the entirety of their funeral at my expense and leaving

As the doors opened I saw the white ceramic floor, the red and grey lockers, and the alphabetically arranged hallways. I was in an American High school. At this moment a jolt of energy gushed through me and made me feel on top of the world, however as the day progressed, my head started to observe the ceramic floor more than the diverse group of people in this school. I felt like I was an “inbetweener” and I am not even bi-racial. This feeling of being an outcast made me homesick. A few months into the school year my English Two teacher gave me a book called “The Gifted Hands.” It was after reading this book, about Ben Carson, I realized I am not the only kid in high school that is feeling out of place. I learned that although our experiences might differ, we were all students trying to skip these few years and become a senior.