Personal Narrative: Remembering Who You Were

Everything that I have attained in the past helped define who I am today. Everything I have gone through and have done in the previous years of my life molded me into the person I am today. Not only have they shaped me into who I am; but also guided me in discovering the potentials I did not realize that I had. Without the challenges and hardships of the past, I know that I would not be who I am today.

I believe you can achieve anything you want in life with hard work, dedication, and passion. There are many experiences I have gone through that have helped shaped who I am today. I may not have control over certain situations, but I have a choice on how it affects me.

Starting over. Those two simple words pretty much sum up where I am at in my life at the moment. I am a 34 year old mother of three. I have never been to college. My husband just recently left me. It has been a whirlwind summer to say the least, but before I get into what brought me back to school, I'll start at the beginning. I was born in FL., and quite literally spent all my time either at the beach or running bare foot on my grandparents farm. I loved every second. Shortly after I turned 8 my mom met my step-dad, and we were quickly headed on our first big adventure, moving to Texas! While I missed my family in FL., I can not tell you enough how happy I was that my mom married my dad. He has been a rock and solid foundation for me my whole

Have you ever felt robbed of a childhood? At the age of six, I was placed into the DYFS system. I moved from house to house, not really having the chance to grow up like normal children. I didn’t get to experience things such as ; asking my older sister advice on boys, learning how to cook grandma’s favorite recipe, or going on family vacation to Disney world . I worked hard to get where I am right now. My experiences have made me of who I am today , my story will tell you my background, where I came from and why my application is incomplete without it.

Growing up a first generation Indian American, I struggled with identity. I asked my parents: was I Indian born-American or American born-Indian? They had conflicting answers. My mother said my ancestry is Indian, but to embrace my American identity. She taught me the values of hard work, independence, and seizing opportunities. My father encouraged me to retain my Indian heritage. He stressed that my traditions, cultural values, and family are who I am. After my parents’ divorce, I ended up living a double life, split between school years with my mom and summers with my dad. Learning to adapt to my parents’ expectations and financial circumstances made me the well-rounded, open-minded and educated person that I am today.

The five items that I chose that best reflects who I am today would be a soccer jersey, earbuds, my key club pen, a book, and a beauty blender. I chose my soccer jersey because it reflects my love for soccer and how teamwork is everything. I also chose earbuds because it reflects my passion for listening to music, I listen to music on a daily basis with anything and everything that I do. I added my Key Club pen to the list because it reflects the dedication that I have for helping others around the community and how I hope to be able to do more in the future. A Book would be the thing that would best reflect who I am today because I love reading. Reading is my most favorite way to pass time, anywhere anytime. A beauty blender would probably

I consider my identity, interests and personality to be as if it was a chain, one which is all connected to my family, and the environment in which I was raised. As a kid, I was always extremely organized with everything I did. From cleaning my room, to making my school binder nice and neat. My mom always taught me to be efficient in every way I could to help me achieve everything I wanted better and faster. There was times where I would share rooms with my brother. His side of the room was always muddled and disorganized, and mine was all in order by colors and sizes. I was a weird kid, obsessed with neatness.

When I introduce myself I will state my name and something they would either know or remember me by. Never would I immediately go into a story on who I am or how I found my identity. That, quite frankly, is a little too much to handle. If they were to get to know me, they would discover many things about just exactly who Kaitlin Wyse is.

How does one define their identity? What are the most important things in life to you? Many cannot answer this question. It’s a problem many people face and try to find a solution to. Everyone is born into different cultures, families and even communities, but how we define our identity is from our personal attributes, our skills and abilities that we possess and even our interests and hobbies. If there’s something about you that you believe defines you in a big way, this could be considered your identity. Our identities are a complex interworking of genetics, our cultural and familial upbringing, spirituality, social circles, personal choice and taste, our community, as well as many other traits. I have an identity that specifically pertains to me. It’s been forming ever since the day I’ve been born and

I saw, even though you tried to cover my eyes. I heard, even though you tried to block my ears. I felt, even though you pretended there wasn't a reason to. How could I possibly understand what I was seeing and feeling at such a young age? Who was there for me to talk to about it? No one..I had to comprehend so much. I sat behind the door with my back against it, when the screaming began again I closed my eyes this time. I pictured myself in a meadow with the grass being pure green and the sky being pure blue. The sun shined so brightly on my skin and the feeling of warmth comforted me. I could see a man walking up to me, but he was so bright you couldn't see his face. My throat was in a knot and my heart was heavy, but as

Recalling a time when I observed a negative action and could of done something about it was probably back in middle school. This event was when one individual was bullying a kid and talking in a negative manner to this certain individual and this cause one person to flip over a desk, but I was just a witness I would have stopped this by notify someone or telling the person to stop or calm down.

Strolling into my last hour of the day like any other, only to find that there was a substitute, another day of busy work instead of reviewing for the test. I sat in my assigned seat in the back of the class as usual, while the sub introduced himself.

When I pondered all of the character traits that I retain, a prominent attribute that recurred to me was that of independence. I have been called

Personal Identity is something I have never sat down and specifically thought about. Lucky for me, I have seldom had an instance where I was disadvantaged because of my identity. I assume that everyone has parts of themselves that they dislike-it is human nature, but we are who we are and I believe that everyone needs to be proud of that. The person I identify with is diverse from anyone else but that what makes humans so incredible. The person I classify with is someone who I am satisfied with in both my personal and professional self.

I would say distraction was one of the challenges I had to overcome to get where I am today. My friends, relationships, staying up late, watching television or doing something else rather than doing my work, would always back track me even if I thought “I’ll be okay” and just catch back up; it’s not that easy. I use to focus so much on other people in my life, I’d forget about myself and what’s best for me. When I was in the middle school, I would get so distracted by my cell phone, my mom would have a restriction on it so that I couldn’t send or receive text within school hours. Nevertheless, I didn’t understand, but now I see where it could hurt my grades.