Personal Narrative: How Double Inhale Changed My Life

Right now, she is trying to soothe the kids. She does this every night, and every night, the children go to bed with the promise that tomorrow would be a better day. I can hear her walk back into the room, but my eyes remain fixated on the fire, hypnotized by their dance; a fiery consumption that sends up sparks and ash. She silently begins to clean up the shattered mess, sweeping up the shards of glass, and soaking up the whiskey and gin. Her face is a ghostly white, completely devoid of emotion. The soft tinkling of the glass is? accompanied by the low crackling coming from the hungry flames.

I could not resist. I drew closer to her on the sofa, as if to a newly kindled fire. I hoped that she would reach out to me with a look or include me with a smile. But she did not. (324)

“Well I would say goodnight, but I don’t like you.” I pulled out and she sat back down, with tears streaming down her face. I drove through little communities listening to the radio and eating the food I saved. I arrived in Reno, Nevada at 7:00 a.m. My bloodshot eyes told me I needed to rest, even for a few hours, but I’m going to see my daughter. I was low on gas, but I decided to take the risk of going up the mountain on the way to Tahoe. The tree’s became a blur as I pushed the pedal. The warm summer light beaming onto the road before me. The pine trees smell blessed my nose.

Seconds had seemed to pass like minutes and minutes like hours. They were addicted, or in love. Neither had been able to distinguish which. He'd spent the days doing everything in his power to find a distraction, pouring himself into his work nine-to-five and then letting a drink, or ten, settle him in the evening. They had tried tirelessly to find a balance but somehow couldn't tune themselves to vibrate on the same frequency. They stood close, cramped up in a corner by clubbers completely oblivious to the energy flowing between them. His surprise to see her was shadowed by the fire in his stomach, he couldn't take his eyes away from her lips, his own tingling with longing for their

So today I decided to go with my good buddy Isaac to a support group for teens with Cancer. As the group was starting I saw this beautiful figure of a young lady. As the groups shared information about each other she said her name was Hazel Grace Lancaster and was a fighter against Thyroid Cancer In her lungs. This form of Thyroid Cancer causes fluids to flood the lungs stopping them from breathing. So after the meeting was over, Hazel-Grace and I went outside and talked for a while. We chatted about school and how we both are coping with cancer. As time went on I put a cigarette in my mouth, which made her mad. After she finished yelling at me for having a cig in my mouth I told her it’s a metaphor. ( Putting the thing

She walks to the centermost oak tree near Mason Hall, she finally has found the perfect shady spot on an 80-degree day. She passes the boy from her Psychology class and gives him a small smile. She’s taking a journey to a jungle she doesn’t normally observe, a place where many humans and animals inhabit. There isn’t a breeze and the air feels drier than usual. The Diag seems unfriendly today, as she sits down she’s nervous of her surroundings. She plants herself on a somewhat clean patch of grass and pulls out her shiny laptop. She is reading “Werner Herzog’s Conquest of the Useless” for her freshman English class. As she dives her way into the reading she starts to think about where she is, what is going on around her, and the journey that she is on. A bushy red squirrel approaches her, she’s confused why it’s coming so close and quickly gets up to escape its presence. “Why in the world is this squirrel so close to me” she thinks to herself. The girl moves from the tree but as she get up she starts to notice specific details she hasn’t before.

Walking near the bank of the Miner’s River, Virginia took a long drag from her cigarette and blew smoke through her nostrils, a skill she learned in the second grade. Back then, she’d snatch half-smoked cigarettes from her father’s ashtrays and stuff them into her socks to smoke later.

The fistful of hair wrapped snugly in a vice-like grip was beginning to bring tears to my eyes; however, he burning pain that shot through my scalp was nothing compared to the burning deep in my heart. The wails of a woman, presumably my mother, but possibly my own, were stuck in a never ending loop, consisting of pleas and indistinguishable sobs that made my head throb. The light yellow walls of the kitchen and the deep red shade of the door came into focus through bleary eyes, causing panic to constricted around my chest like a

I am Mr. Lungs. I am located on either side of the chest. I am in the respiratory system. Air is taken to the body from the nose, or the mouth, then taken to the trachea, which branches off to the bronchi, then to me. I work with the heart and the blood as well. My main functions are to do a process called “respiration,” or breathing. In respiration, oxygen from incoming air enters the blood, and carbon dioxide leaves the blood. In order to do this, oxygen, coming from air, comes to the nose, or the mouth, then to the trachea, then the bronchi, and finally to me. I am important because, I supply the body with oxygen, and take waste out. The Human Body Corporation needs oxygen to live. You should not fire me because, the Human Body Corporation

Something fell near her, crashed down from the ceiling and showered sparks and embers onto her shirt and arms. It burned, it burned so much, but she couldn't move.

My heart started pounding against my chest, trying to escape and find a healthy pair of lungs, because mine it seemed had been replaced with those of a six-year-old girl. My mouth grew cold and dry as if the air around me was on the brink of snow. I desperately tried to tell my brain that everything was fine and that there's no need to panic. But my brain ignored me, as it had done many times before, and ordered by organs to keep fighting the against the danger to come. My head never seems to listen to me.

As humans, we have a natural concern for the wellbeing of our peers, however we are too often powerless, either because we are too young or too poor to make a difference. However, like some of my fellow Latinos, I was given an oxygen mask in the form a citizenship to the most powerful country in the world. This mask allows me to take a deep breath and think clearly, think about my plans to overcome the poverty that I was born into. As a human, my every movement relies on oxygen, and thanks to the oxygen mask that is my American citizenship, I have met many people that have each given me their share of oxygen. These people include Victoria and Dennis Mayer, who helped me learn about the American culture, Diane Runkle and Caroline Wright, who

It’s chilly tonight, the crisp autumn air blew the leaves in circles around my feet. It always fascinated me how trees lose their leaves, only to have them grow back. My strides are long and the wind blows my dress. I prefer summer nights, the air is warmer. I am pulled out of my trance when I hear the soft crunch of foliage behind me. I turn around to see a man wearing a fireman’s suit. I see firemen walking home each night, the same solemn look on their face. The same story every day, wake up, burn books, sleep, all on repeat. But something was different. He stood staring, was he studying me? He looked as if he was trying to speak, but he couldn't. Eventually, he said, “You’re our new neighbor girl, aren't you?”

On Thursday I woke up to an email from my employer that I start my training that day. Which was a good start for the day. On Thursday I had my second relaxation lecture. In the lecture we had the qualitative breathing exercise. During the exercise, I was so focused on working my diaphragm that I did not realized I am not exhaling through my mouth until the end of the exercise. I got relaxed during the exercise, however I feel I respond better to quantitative breathing than qualitative even though my skin temperature increased during this exercise. While I was doing the exercise seated, my stomach moved outward, however in the stand position I did not feel much movement of stomach.

There is a burning image that runs through my head; the image of the fire woman. Joan, the fire woman, was an older lady, probably about sixty years old. I can tell because she had wrinkles that began to possess her slim, dark-skinned body. Her hair was an unnatural shade of strawberry blonde, in a style much like Dora’s, straight and cut short so that it barely reached her freckled shoulders and bent, slightly inward toward the base of her chiseled jawline. Her bangs glided, gently in a straight line across her hidden forehead, a bit above her narrow, perfectly arched, drawn on eyebrows. Winsome for her age. Her common summer attire consisted of pastel colored shorts matched with a fashionable t-shirt, in some shade of pink, or a black, spaghetti-strapped top. She was an affectionate and thoughtful woman towards everyone; including the children from the daycare across the street. Every day, Joan carried out a sapphire blue, circular tray with white polka dots that held some sort of cold treat such as lemonade or popsicles and handed them out to the excited children from the daycare on the hot summer days of July and August as if she were a waitress. Joan had never admired scorching hot weather, so she always made sure that everyone could stay cooled off. That was until the day that the burning image was stationed,