Personal Narrative: Around The Age Of Ten

At 15 years old, and growing up without knowing the hardships many America went through to carve out a good life for themselves, I wanted to get the perspective of a family member and their experience growing up in a time much different from our own. Recently I had a chance to sit and talk with my great-grandmother. Having mostly grown up with my mother’s side of the family, also having my middle name being parallel to my grandmother on that side, and hearing he stories they would tell, I decided that I wanted to get to know my Dad’s side of the family a little better, so I picked up the phone and made the call to my Grandma Toman, as we call her. Being as she lives so far away, it’s hard for me to get together with her often, so this one phone call really gave me the chance to get closer to her. In this day and age, as the screens on our phones are getting bigger, and we grow closer to our devices, we drift apart from our families.

It all happened about 5 years ago my husband lost his job and things began to go

Hailey G. is a five-year-old girl. She is the second of three girls; her older sister is 13 and her younger sister is 3. She is half-Dominican and half Colombian. Her mother is from Colombia and her father is from the Dominican Republic. She has traveled to Colombia two times and went to the Dominican Republic for the first time in December 2016. When she learned she was going to D.R. she was very excited. She said that she had never been there and was so happy to go visit Abuelita. I reminded her that I used to live in D.R. before I moved here to the United States. When she came back from vacation, she brought my assistant, and I a souvenir. I really love the souvenir and it reminded me when I lived back home. Her paternal grandmother comes

Through Out elementary school I was bullied. I never really wanted to tell anybody, because I figured no one would believe me. They only saw what what on the outside of me which was a pretty, little, intelligent girl. Every time I got on the bus I was scared because, every day they would make fun of me. I used to think’’ Is it my hair, the way I dress, or are they just making fun of me.’’ Every night I told myself I was ugly and no one liked me. Then eventually I just stopped talking to most of my friends. I lost most of them. When I came home from school my step-dad used to ask me “How was your day?’’ I just said good and went upstairs and cried. I just felt like their was’nt enough room for me in this world. I used to even think my mom did’nt like me at one point. When ever I

What was your ten year old experience like? Mine consisted of traveling alone to Mexico to visit my Grandfather throughout summer vacations. Traveling alone was something most of my relatives did at that age, it was an opportunity to visit the country their parents had grown up in. At first, my mom was skeptical. The thought of leaving me alone on a plane surrounded by strangers while being ten thousand feet in the air terrified her. It prompted her to call me every hour to see how I would be doing. Living as an isolated ten years old who stayed home all day playing video games, I would view this trip as a chance to get out of my comfort zone. At the same time it also terrified me, the thought of leaving the country I grew up living while experiencing a completely new atmosphere that is unfamiliar to me, had me shaking with excitement and anxiety. The morning of my flight I woke up anxious. As I stood up to walk towards the living room, I found my mom sitting on the couch with an anxious look on her face. Worried about making her feel worse I said: “Don’t worry mom, everything is ready for the flight.” She smiled, erasing her anxious look. Secretly, thoughts of getting lost at the airport or missing my flight had me terrified. I sat in my room contemplating thoughts of the new environment that I would be experiencing soon. I had never been good at stepping out of my comfort zone, but I knew that this was the perfect opportunity to do so. I knew that there was no going back,

Growing up as a kid, I was quite the troublemaker. I would act out inappropriately at unfitting times, which frequently led to consequences. It did not matter whether I was in public or at home; I would continue to act the same. It ranged from using offensive words and physically hurting others, to being inconsiderate. I was a naïve child who was oblivious to the real world, and acted on a whim without the thought of the consequences for my actions. One may describe this behavior as simply what makes a child, a child; however, I never knew how much it would affect my life going forward.

Three years have passed. Her muscles twitching got worse. As a teenager seeing her trembling while walking bothered me. I have kept the keys and wallets in my hands until now. Not because she was not okay. It was curiosity as a teenage boy. Always wanted to have a ride to school. I could not let my mom take it back. Maybe it was me who made her problem worse. It is hard to answer when someone asks when I found about her problem. Age of thirteen is little too young to know what was really going on. It was a neighbor of mine who allowed me to get an idea of my mom’s severe situation.

Growing up is never easy. Everyone, from the moment we’re born to the moment we leave to fend for ourselves, is told how to be themselves; how to act, talk, walk, think, feel, and believe. Eventually we reach a point in our lives where we figure out how to live for ourselves rather than blindly accepting what we’re told. We begin to discover ourselves as life progresses, learning about our passions, talents, strengths, weaknesses, and orientations. Growing up is never easy, but it’s an uphill battle when it comes to accepting and dealing with a differing sexual and romantic orientation. Trudging through a flurry of mental illnesses, nights of emotionally charged arguments and deafening yells thrown between relatives, self-image issues due to

Think back to the time when you were eighteen. What category of kid would you put yourself under? The wild type? The rebellious and difficult type? Or the stay at home good kid? That is me right now. I have always been the good kid. Doing what every errands my parents wanted me to do. Cooking, cleaning, babysitting my two younger siblings, going to school and now working two jobs to help out even more. I am pretty content with my life and how things are going but sometimes my thoughts get to me. Usually when I'm sitting in the house alone I think to myself. And the same feeling always seems to come back. That sort of empty feeling. Like I'm running the marathon of life, everyone is passing me and I finally realize I'm stuck on a tredmil. It resembles the color gray. Dull, flat, but there is beauty in it. I hope. But for now its not much.

Novelists Alex Shakur said, "childhood and adulthood were not factors of age. but states of mind." The day I recognized my transition from childhood to adulthood, this change in my state of mind, was July 17, 2015. It was a monumental day for the state of Oklahoma and its constituents. This day left an impact on our state, but for myself, however, it left a change so unforgettable. Instantly effective, it transfigured my way of thinking and constructed a standard for the way in which I wanted to live my life. This significant day marked my personal recognition of my transition to adulthood, but it wasn't the event that the average person recognizes their entrance to adulthood. Nevertheless, it wasn't the day I started my first job, it wasn't

Growing up it was hard being your own person with a twin attached to you, but that didn’t stop from trying. When I was little I didn’t have a clue what the world my parents were trying to protect me from. They tried to cover up the fact about their finical issues and about their jobs. My first day of school ever was with me crying saying I wanted to go back to my mom, making any excuse to get out of school. In 3rd grade I wanted to join the basketball team mostly because my sister was in basketball, but they told me I couldn’t join basketball until I was in 4th grade thus the beginning of my athletic career stared in fourth grade.

Picture a woman sitting at the table with a baby in one hand, phone in the other, bills scattered around on the table, and a look of despair written all over her face. This was the image that I saw of my mother at the age of six, a struggling single parent taking care of three children. She walked around with a joyous look on her face for me and my siblings, but I knew that inside life’s reality was eating her away. Seeing my mother depressed because my father wasn’t in the picture was unbearable. Hearing her cry on the phone to my grandmother at night about how she can’t do it anymore was heartbreaking. Having to do everything alone greatly played a part on my mother’s emotions in a negative way.

On the fifteenth of January 2009, I sat with my nine-month pregnant mother, in our miniature one bedroom apartment, discussing the gender of her baby. I continually expressed my desire for a brother, who would share my interests of destroying toys; however, my mother insisted on a sister, believing she would counteract my vicious attitude. Debating for hours on end about every aspect the child exhausted me to the point of passing out. Soon, it approached my bedtime, 9 p.m., I quickly tucked in next my mother beginning to dream about the adventures I would encounter with my new sibling.

My favorite 8 grade lesson was when we dissected cow eyes. I liked this because we got to learn how the eye works step by step. Each group got to go their own pace and we each got to dissect part of the eye. I also liked it because it was pretty gross and and I wasn’t expecting what would come out of it. Dissecting the eye was very interesting because you got to see all the parts of the eye and how small some can be or even how some parts of the eye are just little holes. While we were dissecting the eye, I was surprised by how touch some of the pieces are. When we were trying to cut the eye in half we had a really hard time cutting through the muscle and fat. After we cut through one part of the eye, a bunch

During my initial meet with the 3-year-olds, I felt like a celebrity as the children swarmed in to catch ahold of my attention. I was bombarded with many hugs of sorts and lingering eyes filled with a sense of curiosity. There was one child, in particular, that caught my immediate attention. Her name is J, a 3-year-old child that was filled with energy and radiance. Though, many of her peers exhibited those traits as well. However, J was seemingly more complex to analyze in accordance to the developmental standards of her age group, in which triggered my peculiar interest. J was often quick, persistent, and took initiative when answering questions that I presented to the crowd to resolve. These questions pertained to Disney characters that