Personal Narrative : My Personal Experience

Put the gun down! Put the gun down! Pow Pow Pow. The gun shots cracked into the air as loud as thunder. One after another. We live day by day not knowing our end. In the blink of an eye our lives can be changed forever. Its life, yet even in knowing this we never expect tragedy to find us. We never expect it to affect our lives and the people we know and love. I’m going to share with you the day tragedy found my life.

Staring at blank space in the dark. Tucked under my covers, tear stains on my face. Red as a tomato itself. I couldn't comprehend why was I was being punished. I did everything right, everything that you could think of. Mistakes were made here and there but as for myself, I was a good person. I know that everyone's worried. Till this day I cried and cried every night to a cold empty pillow where he use to lay wondering how. Memories floods my mind with every object that comes across my sight. Reminiscing as if it were yesterday. In my 2014 Chevy Malibu laughing, enjoying what God created. I smiled, a smile that stretched across my face as the cool autumn breeze kissed my skin. Staring at the most beautiful human being I could ever imagine.

Any single human experience can only properly be judged by that human’s amount of dread or anticipation in it’s beginning or end.

John and I had been friends for years. We had both lived in Seattle, then he moved to New York because his dad found a new job opportunity. Coincidentally, my dad found a job in New York that paid better than his current job too, so we ended up moving as well. Both our dads were painters, and they had met while painting a bridge across the river in town. We lived close together in the outskirts of Seattle. Both our families were poor, and couldn’t afford good transportation and schooling. John had been 14 when I was 12, but we lived next door to each other so it was hard not to be good friends.

Time passed as I remained in that kitchen chair. Until the doorbell broke me out of my continuous, horrific train of thoughts, that is.

I was rigid like a statue, I honestly didn’t know what I could do to help her. I was shaking uncontrollably, and my mouth could not make out any words as if I forgot how to speak. I left it at that, nothing else was said. It remained silent the whole morning and afternoon because Jackie left the room to rest in one of the guest rooms. When it was approaching 8 o'clock Jackie swayed down the steps, I glanced at her. She had the same look as she did before she passed out. This time she muttered words.

When I was 14 years old, my dad and I went rock climbing in the mountains with a friend and his son. It was the first time I had been rocking climbing anywhere outdoor. We had to hike in to the point where we could start climbing. We got to the top of the mountain and it was beautiful! On the hike down, my dad slipped in the snow and slid down the mountain. He hit a pile of rocks and broke his leg. I, being 14 and completely inexperienced, had to run down the mountain as fast as I could, while connected to a rope, to get to my dad and assess the situation. He dad had to spend the night on the mountain with our friend, while me and our friend's son were taken home by complete strangers at 3 in the morning. THe next day, I went into shock. I

I sat in the rain for over an hour at my spot tonight, looking past the slate boulders and fallen trees of the forest I have grown to love so much. It's a good thinking spot. It's been my safe place to go when I cannot love myself. I use it often, if one would like to know. It's been raining all day, but I don't mind; it was fully worth the wet butt just to collect my thoughts outside.

Seven fifteen Tuesday the twenty ninth of November I bundled up in my black peacoat and headed up the road from Peabody hall to Ellison Campus center. It was a surprisingly warm evening for late November, sprinkling with a soft breeze. I was on my way to a Salem State Writer’s Series Event. Up Drinkwater Way the lights of the campus glowing in the rain it was a soft peaceful evening, a good atmosphere for a poetry reading. I headed into the campus center, it was busy considering how few people I had seen on my walk over. People were meeting up chatting amicable about the events they were arriving to witness. I headed through the lobby to the stairs and descended down into the basement. Normally the basement of Ellison reminds me a bit to much of an empty hospital hallway in a horror movie. All long windowless corridors and locked doors. But tonight, as it often is on event night, the hallways at the end of stairs was bustling with people. The metro room, the location of the nights events, was already nearly full. Faculty, alumni, students, and guest crowded together on hotel ballroom chairs. People were chatting and laughing and the atmosphere was light like fizzy water, despite the weather outside. With the usual nervous trepidation I feel as a young person going anywhere I’ve never been before alone, I sat in a chair on the end of a row closer to the back, leaving a polite distance of one chair between myself and the girl next to me. Then, as time was creeping just a few

My eyes shoot open, blood rushes through my veins, a harsh ring pierces my ears, adrenaline jumpstarts my nervous system. Catapulting out of bed, feet crash onto the wood floor with a resounding thud, vibrations shoot up my legs. Intent on murdering my morning nemesis, I take aim at the blaring red-eyed demon sitting next to the fan. Striking with a swift click of the on/off switch, I end the incessant blare of my alarm. "6:15, Monday, not late." A relieved sigh escapes my lips, gaze shifting to my dresser. My anxiety calms quickly, and I notice the cold wooden floor nips at my toes.

2014 my final year of high school, I honestly like school with the exception, of math, and this might come as a shock to a lot of people, but art. After three long years of school, I was incredibly happy, that I was a senior at Stamford High School, and I was on my way out the door, into a cap and gown and finally done, well at least for that chapter of my life. So when I received my student schedule for the school year I was excited, I only needed three out of seven classes to graduate, which where mathematics, English, and you probably guessed it art, but at that time I didn't realize that. In all honesty, I was only planning on doing the bare minimum to graduate, so by that logic, I was only going to attend math and English and then just figure out how to waste my time, but that's another story for a different day.

She barged the door as she entered the house. It was as if a wave of despair followed her across every room she went to. Grumpingly, she headed straight to her room; she threw her school backpack and her binder on the bed. Her body was drained with stress and even she knew that she couldn’t continue this work any longer. The school year was coming to a close, as all the finals and presentations were being pushed forward. Her mood, her attitude, and her way of talking told everyone the amount of distress and anxiety she was in.

Sarah and I met in the second grade and immediately became best friends. At this point in my life, I genuinely needed her. Sure, I had friends, but I never truly fit in. At my Jewish private day school, I was the only Chinese student in my grade. My peers felt uncomfortable around me because they thought I was too "foreign." Many of them failed to understand that culturally, I was just like them. I converted to Judaism before I could speak and was raised by two Ashkenazi Jews since age one.

Do you ever miss the sense of unfamiliarity a space used to hold for you? Perhaps attempted to remember the feeling you had the very first time you walked through the place you now confidently call home? I crave the rush of exploring somewhere foreign to me, and chase the excitement of strange settings tirelessly. While walking towards the famous Sweet Auburn Market with my classmates, my mind was already racing. I couldn’t help but wonder how differently each one of us would experience and view the space. We all carry lenses through which we view the world with styles original to us. Amazingly we all come from an extremely diverse range of cultures, backgrounds, and personal experiences that would shape the connections we would soon make.

I struggled to identify a personal experience that impact my life as the topic for this paper. After days of thought about the assignment, I sat down to write, but I ended up staring at a blank computer screen for a long time. I thought to myself, I am struggling. This thought prompted me to think of all the times that I had struggled in my life. I remembered struggling in basketball, school, and everyday life. As I thought about them, I realized that I got through them and benefitted from the experiences. Pushing myself to my limits, looking for ways to get better, and refusing to quit had produced some good results in my life. People tend to associate struggling as a bad thing because it is a difficult experience usually filled with frustration. That can be true, but it can also lead to positive changes in life. I wanted to show how struggling with something can have positive results.