The Day That Changed My Life

September 8th my first day back to school is a very important day for me. That day became one of the most meaningful events of my life. I consider this day to be a very important day in my life because it was the first step into shaping up my future and making a better living for my family.

I came to US during my 8th grade and that was a life changing moment in my life. It was first time traveling aboard and that also not for a trip but for to permanent settlement. I was nervous my whole time been in the plane that how I will cope up with new environment and with bunch of English speakers. I got more. When it came pilot call for, that it's time to land on the Detroit Airport, tighten your seatbelts and be relax. As soon as the plane landed on American soil, I knew that this was the place where I’d to start a new life. Even though I knew America is the “Land of Opportunity”, everything here seemed so strange to me, the streets, the language and the people that was my first time traveling abroad.

I was about nine years old when I first came to the United States from Haiti. Although I was old enough to understand that we were moving, I did not quite understand the importance of the move and why my mom kept referring to America as the land of opportunities. In the beginning, I hated everything, I did not know the language, I missed my friends, I missed Haiti, I missed the familiarity of things. However, my mom constantly reminded me that this is for the best, that our lives have changed for the better. So, I nodded and continued to be unhappy until I started to understand the language, until I started making new friends, until I missed Haiti less and less, and until the United States became home.

I came to the US on September 15, 2009. My mother had accepted a job at Wake Forest Baptist hospital and decided to move my whole family to America. I did not understand why we had to come to America, having to leave my friends, my home, and all my childhood memories to go to a completely foreign environment. But my parents said it was a new beginning.

I want to share with you five things that I implemented into my life that created amazing, compounding change, and completely shifted the direction and energy of my life. I came to them through reading, talking with others, and taking an honest look at my circumstances and the chain of events that led me to be where I was. I was discouraged by the drudgery, loneliness, and lack of direction I found embedded in my day to day experience. I used the wisdom and experience of many to create a plan of action that has surprised me with it's effectiveness and simplicity. Change is available to everyone, and it is available right now.

Only 38% of girls who have a child before the age of eighteen get a high school diploma. Thankfully with my motivation and support I was on the positive side of this statistic. Even though I have come a long way within the past year, it has been a year full of challenges and emotions. Within two days I found out that I was expecting a baby, I went into shock because of the life adjustment that I would have to make, and I also built the strength up to tell my mom about the pregnancy.

Tan would then have to go onto the phone herself, and explain her mother’s thoughts in “clear” English,to then find out the hospital had the results the whole time, and would be able to pick it up. This shows one obstacle that many people have to face when learning English as a second language: they often get taken advantage of because people seem to think that they don’t understand what’s going on.

My mother approached and tried to use the the little English she knew and said, “Me no English.”

Everyone has their moments. The ones that are happy, sad and ones you’ll never forget no matter how hard you try. The most important day of my life was my high school graduation. I had many emotions, the place wasn’t very welcoming, but the overall experience was great. I’d do it all over again.

“Things change. And friends leave. Life does not stop for anybody.” In the beginning of the seventh grade middle school year in 2013. I remember hearing this quote from English teacher during the first week of school. In my head, I vividly remember thinking to myself that this is one of those quotes for the kids who have to remember to continue to try hard and continue working hard. This was nothing that really relatable to me. Back then, I always believed that I was never needed anything. I was at overachieving, goody-two shoes, 4.0 student. Basically I believed I had new all the skills in terms of school and streets. Every time I was hit with one of these quotes for my teachers about life or always trying my best, and I just went along with and ignored it. I did the assignment along with it and ignored the quote for most of the year until that day. December 13, 2013. This was the day that changed my viewpoint on life for the rest of my life.

I arrived to the United States a few years ago from Mexico. I was a teenager when my parents decided to move to the United States. We moved here because my parents wanted to give me and my siblings a better education and improve our standard of living. When my parent gave us the news, the first thing I felt was fear, I was afraid because I did not where we were going and what to expect about the new place that we would call our home. I had to leave the place I grew up, my family, and my friends behind, and I felt that I was not ready for that big change. I remember the first day I came to the United States with my family and at the beginning it was a struggle to adapt to a new language, to a new culture.

There were many moments that shaped who I am today, but there was a moment that happened when I was six or seven that changed my life. My brother is eight years older than me and he has always been a trouble maker. For the most part he was just a really bad kid. He stole things all the time, even from our parents. He did drugs and drank alcohol. He ran around with all the wrong kids. He snuck out of the house all the time. Our parents did everything they could to try and straighten him out but nothing worked.

In life we often experience moments that change who we are and how we come to be. These moments immediately spark something inside of us and inspire us to change our future. As for me, this moment did not transpire until my twenties. Before this moment, I gave my parents a heart attack every other week because I was taking every class at school imaginable to try and find my little niche in this world. Until that time, I often had a different idea of my potential self every other week. I was constantly changing who I was and how I was going to get there. My “Plan A” at the time was to become a rock star and my “Plan B” was to win the lottery and to never have to worry about working ever again. Technically, that is still an option because you never truly know. However, it wasn’t until this particular day that I realized what I wanted to be.

My childhood was never exactly normal or easy. My parents had split up when I was three and I was sent to live with my grandparents. My dad moved back to Ohio and I never had much of a relationship with him. My mom stayed in North Carolina, but moved to a different city. She had a nice job, a nice relationship, and she even got to visit her kids. I was always much closer to my mother than my father. A few years later, my mom lost her job and decided to move in with us to help take care of everyone. This event marks the start of when I was most happy in life.

September 11,2001 a day that some of us might not remember too well because of our age, or a day that sticks out too many like a sore thumb. For my family, this is a day that will never be erased from our memory. My Dad had been commuting for work back and forth between Belleville, Illinois and New York City, while my Mom stayed home with my sister and I. I was six at the time and my younger sister Lauren was two. It was an ordinary Tuesday for us. My Dad would be gone the whole week till late Friday when he would fly home for a couple days to then return back to the city on Sunday. It was not an ideal situation for my family, but we made it work because we knew it was only temporary. On that morning, I went off to school, my Dad went to work at the World Trade Center, and my mom stayed home to take care of my sister. Before I go any further, I would like to make it known that my Dad survived these attacks and my family and I are extremely fortunate for that. We constantly keep the families and victims who were not as fortunate throughout this traumatic experience in our thoughts and prayers.