Personal Narrative: My Loss Of Self

Walking away from everything you once knew and starting over is never a picnic. Leaving Iraq, and moving to America has impacted my life more than anything. I was only 4 years old at that time, and the only English I spoke was “excuse me, water please.” My family and I did not know it then, but our lives were going to change; we would become “Americanized”. Learning English was one of the massive changes that occurred, the way I dressed (culture), and even the way I had power to go to school and educate myself.

When I woke up in the morning, my mom had left for work. My dad was singing in the kitchen, banging pots around. I got up, tiptoed down the hall, washed my face. A neatly wrapped present lay on the bathroom counter. It was addressed to me. I stuffed it into my robe pocket, and rushed back down the hall. Under the covers, I opened the package. On the first page of a small, leather notebook, an inscription read: to a writer, love your mother. I never wrote anything in the notebook. I could never think of anything good

I have lost my grandpa and have not gotten over the idea of it. When I was in the sixth grade, my grandfather was very sick; he could barely walk. While my grandmother and some other family members went uptown for some household things, food, and medication, I was told to take care of him. Yet, I wanted to play with my friends outside. He told me to go ahead and play, but for some reason I just got mad and slammed the door and left. Around nighttime, I seen an ambulance pull up to my grandparents’ house.

At the age of 15, I woke up one day and felt as if my room was closing in on me. I lay in the middle of my bed as the walls kept coming closer, the ceiling lower, my space smaller and a feeling of being detached from the world. I opened my mouth, but no sound escaped. I was slipping into the darkness, this time, I felt as though no one could save me.

I walked away feeling like I was a complete failure and that I didn’t deserve to go on. On the way home my mother tried to talk to me, but, I put on my headphones and cried silently. Once we were home my father asked how it went. The tears that were in my eyes and they became more evident as my shoulders and chest were shaking and trembling. The only sound in the room was the sound of me crying and wailing. I started crumbling and falling to the ground and my mother and father rushed to my side. They held me until the tears came to a stop and a little bit afterwards

Hi iam Edgardo Flores i was born in casa grande, az not that far away from our state capital,Phoenix, Az.theres nothing better to do in a hot summer than going out with the friends to a lake and have a blast riding jet skis boats and my favorite, swimming!My activites of the day are shooting,riding horses,and my favorite one is quad riding.Thats right! ive been doing these fun exciting hobbies since i was 9 years old.pretty young huh?

I want to leave, I want to disappear. Not a vacation, but that spontaneous quick escape with no bothers, just an unrestricted trip to free the mind and enjoy the bits of silence. To go by car to see how the scenery around me changes as I kill the distance, while listening to my favorite music as loud as I can. Just shout out my lungs with my terrible singing. As the music plays, I will grab a book, which will get all my beliefs and views away. No matter what the book will be about. As long as it would get me away, away from here. There would be just me and the characters of the novel, who struggle, fight, and compete, while they face delight, pleasure, and glory. Every so often, I will stop at the cafes on the road to grab some food, which

I come across a rear projection TV on the side of the road one day, load it up, and take it home. I eagerly spend a good four hours stripping it down and saving as much as I can. I end up with a 48” fresnel lens, two hefty speakers, a couple large capacitors, three glass lenses, and a glass mirror. Left over is a box of electronic waste and the particle board skeleton of a TV. I take the electronics to my local electronics recycling center, and set the wooden frame on the curb. I took 70 lbs. of trash and turned it into 10 lbs. of treasure ripe for projects, 30 lbs. of recyclables that would have gone to a landfill, and 30 lbs. of refuse that I had fun

Who knew that things could change so abruptly, it almost felt that my whole world was flipped within a blink of an eye. Things were going to be different from now on, the people, the weather, even the fresh summer breeze from the coast will soon become a cold bitter winter breeze. This all came to my mind when my mom announced to my family that we’re moving, to New Jersey, once my school goes on summer break. At first, I began to panic, why do we have to move? Why can’t we just live here? We don’t even know anyone there, except for my aunt. We just moved here three years ago from New Jersey, and we didn’t like it, that’s why we only lived there for a month. Then why would we would we like it now? I question my mom, and I demanded explanations

Threads to Which I belong is a book that captivated my soul. As I read through the pages of history, I found myself traveling back in time. Invisible I stood in Mississippi watching a family’s history unfold. As I turned the pages, my emotions changed constantly. I experienced emotions of anger, disgust, sorrow, and happiness. The author has written an outstanding piece of work that forces you to consider researching your own family history.

What is identity? The definition as a person’s own sense of whom they are, which their past define them. Identity is very important in our society, no matter your social status. I can attach identity to belonging to something or place. As human race, we feel the need to belong to a group or place. Because belonging to a group or place, give us the sense of identity.

In the fall of 2012, my mother almost succumbed to her illness. I had just begun my freshman year of high school midst angry conversations between my parents and the threat of separation. It would seem as if they bickered about the most irrelevant things, almost as if they had no other reason to fight other than the fight itself. Those moments were excruciatingly lonely, my father worked until the dead of night and my mother would come home exhausted from treatment. I now know that there was no one who felt more unvalued than my mother. I wish I had the ability to iron away this blunder that destiny had fabricated, however foolish this desire is.

My identity can be defined by moments in my life. Moving to Canada, learning English and going to high school are three major moments in my life. Going through these experiences have changed the person in me and made me more confident, stronger, better in everything.

It was almost 3 years ago that I found myself in a rather strange dilemma. I was bored with blogging and all the gimmicks that you had to do in order to be good at it. This concept did not work for me. I wanted something that inspired creativity in me and in others. So I started experimenting with posting cartoons, pop culture artwork, internet memes, and videos. Not only was I having fun, I was learning to curate content.

I was playing by myself, running like crazy. For a 6 year old child, malls are boring. So I was trying to have fun by myself. Malls in USA are dangerous for little children, especially if the child is foreign. In addition, there were lots of kidnapping cases in LA back then.While I was trying to have fun, my mom was shopping; so it was my father’s job to look after me. But as always, my father had something more important to do and ignored me. Only in a second, I realized that I can’t see my parents. The eye connection with my father was lost. I tried to look for him but because of the crowd I couldn’t. I was alone, trying to find a way.