Personal Narrative Analysis

I felt my heart racing as I imagined making the top team in the club. I knew right then and there that I was going to try out for the team as soon as I discussed it with my parents. After my parents’ approval, I went to the first tryout with high expectations and aspirations. The tryout was going well at first; my skill was evident on the ice. I was making quick passes and skating hard. I will never forget the fateful pass that happened next. I remember the play in slow motion. I passed the puck through the center ice, a precarious move, but it was intercepted by the opposing team and as a result they scored a swift goal. Groans from the other players could be heard and my heart sank. That pass would determine my fate. After the tryout, I undressed slowly replaying the pass repeatedly in my head. Coach Ruben walked out of his office with the list of players who made the team in his hand. As he posted the list on the bulletin board, all the eager players ran over, examining the list of names. I stared at at the list for what seemed like an eternity searching for my name, but it was not there. I stifled my disappointment and followed my parents out to the car. To my ten year old self, my dreams were crushed and I assumed my hockey career was over before it even

As a sophomore, I tried out again. There were enough girls to create a junior varsity team but again, I was a benchwarmer for varsity, still not useful enough to play, but too experienced for junior varsity. During this year I started to realize that blaming other players for my failure was

My hockey abilities increased and I progressively got better. I started to keep going up in divisions and eventually, at age 10, I was already playing for a 13u team. I was the smallest kid on my team and I felt like an ant to the bigger kids. Although I was the smallest, I was the fastest and the quickest. I felt like a mouse moving in and out of the defenders and quickly moving for point A to point B. Playing in a higher age group, I felt challenged and was up to the test. Throughout my first season on the team, I tallied 10 goals in 8 games and started to gain recognition. I was immediately approached by other club teams wanted me to play for them such as the Jr. Kings and the Jr. Ducks. I felt on top of the world, like a just won a Super Bowl. A short while after a few more games, I had an interview with the Jr. Kings. I remember the day I walked into the interview very clearly, it was raining outside yet the sun was out. Throughout the interview, the coach asked a series of questions such as, would I be a good fit on the team and if I had ever considered of playing for them. Overall, he asked many questions about me and my hockey career but what stood out the most, was when he told me I had such potential that he could see me playing for the kings.

With the motivation to look towards my future, during the off-season I worked long and hard to figure out what went wrong. I went to camps, took weeks off, even tried a different sport. Finally, I had found my inspiration. My inspiration came from a boy I met at a hockey camp. He said that he loved hockey just for the sport. He loved hockey because it was fun, not a competition. I took this advice to heart and

I was convinced at one point in my life that I wouldn't graduate high school, let alone get a college degree. I grew up in a broken home, where there was physical, emotional, mental, and sexual abuse. This all had a tremendous affect on me as a young girl, well into my teenage years, and early adult hood, and significantly impacted the choices I made for myself at the time. I moved out of my home at the age of 15 after my mother remarried, I went to live with a friend which I thought at that time was a great idea. It wasn't long after that I began smoking marijuana, doing cocaine, drinking and taking rohypno. I was hanging out with all the wrong people, and I stopped going to school for over a month my junior year. One morning after I had drank

After reading, I thought about the mental health continuum and how fear, the root of anxiety, was such a universal part of the human experience. While creating the piece I thought about how anxiety blurs out reality, trapping the individual in a swirl of fearfulness and intense worries. It is not considered pathological to be a “worry wart” or a “scardey-cat.” The problem is not the presence of fear, instead it is the overwhelming, debilitating, and persistence of those fears and worries.

On Saturday, September 5th, myself and a few other coworkers had our personal cars parked on the Dollar Thrifty lot and was told to go and park at the employee lot at Hertz. Dana approached and confronted me about my car. The way I was addressed by her made me feel demeaned. Her tone was elevated, talking to me as if I was a child being scolded.  A child like the one she had in the passenger seat when I was confronted. She told me to move my car when my coworker came to relieve me. My response to her was okay. She stayed there for a minute than asked me had she made herself clear, again talking to me like a child. My response was " I heard you". She continued and asked if it was a problem. Again, my response was "I

As a 16 year old young man, when I think about responding to a writing prompt asking me to describe an event that I consider a launch pad towards gaining maturation, the first things that should come to my mind are getting my first job, graduating from high school, or being accepted into the college of my choice. This was not the case for me. The event that I feel has marked my transition from childhood to manhood would be the conversation that my mother had with me after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

I have always loved school, from my first day of kindergarden to my first day of high school and almost everyday in between. I always excelled in school, even though I moved around a lot. I had already been to four different elementary schools by the time I was in the fourth grade, and one more for half a year in sixth grade. I had a rough childhood aside from all of the moving. Growing up my life was never really normal. I had two moms, which nowadays isn’t that big of a deal, but 15 years ago it was. My life was fairly good until I was about five or six when my moms got a divorce. At the time I didn't know it but it was at that point that my life started to change forever. After the divorce my parents went to court for custody and one of

It was a day that I had been waiting for all season, why? Because it meant that the pain was going to be over and it was my final race to prove how good I really was to everyone and hopefully fulfill the goal my coach, school and fans set for me. That morning of October 28th I woke up really sick to my stomach. Nerves were taking over my body and I couldn't sit still. The ride to the course I remember putting my headphones in and zoning everything out and never truly coming out of it till after the race was over. I remember my mom hugging me and telling me how proud of me she was and that no matter how bad my shins hurt to keep running. My coach grabbed me before I went to the starting line and surprisingly said how proud he was of me too, but that it wasn't over so that could change. It was so cold outside and I remember being able to see my breath and worrying that it was going to really effect my performance. I could also see the

I often think about what I would do if I never began to pursue my art. Would I be as creative? I began making art my main focus during my sophomore year of high school. Before that, I believed I was going to go into the science field. Not only did it become my main focus, but it was my escape from the struggles in my life, and my coping mechanism to handle my depression and anxiety, as cliche as it seems.

A time that a strongly held belief of mine was challenged, was when I stumbled upon an article that spoke of a fusion of religion and science. Growing up in a heavy Christian household and going to a very large church in Michigan, my life was filled with everything Christian, including the idea that evolution was not real. While in kindergarten and middle school I had been told to listen to teachers explain scientific ideas such as evolution, and natural selection, but to not believe them to be true, because God made everything and as such there would be no need for evolution or natural selection to fix things. For many years I followed this belief learning, but not truly understanding material, as I was raised to just take in the knowledge

Back when I still wore pigtails, I remember always feeling like an afterthought by my parents. I understood why, and it was justifiable. Since I was the eldest, and my younger brother was put on the autism spectrum, I knew I had to grow up extra quick, for Father always worked and Mother had her plate full, trying to raise us. I would do my chores without being asked and do my homework without needing help, just so Mother could have one less child to worry about. My brother, however, had to have everything done for him. He even needed Mother to brush his pearly whites for him. It was just one more duty to add to the infinite list of responsibilities Mother had to do for my brother.

I usually worry about… everything. If one little thing happens then I freak out about it. I overthink a lot of things and that does not help. It usually takes me a long time to settle down after I start to worry.

Kids always complain about how their parents compare them to the older sibling and they always want to be different from them. I always wanted to be more like my older brother, Alec. Everything he did, I did too. He joined swim, and later I followed in his footsteps and did the same events he did. I always looked up to him and he had a strong influence on my life and the things I did. Track season came along and I was participating but I didn’t know what events to do so I looked to my brother for advice. He also did track and suggested high jump and long jump, I had already decided on long jump but was way too afraid to do high jump because I had never tried it before and it looked so intimidating.