My Experience In My Life

Ten years ago, I was officially a college dropout; leaving Wiley College after only two years was the biggest mistake of my life. Ten years ago, I created a narrative about the type of people who went to college. I made myself believe that college was a place exclusively for extremely smart people who came from nice middle-class families. College was not a place where an African American who lived in subsidized housing went. Although I was enrolled in college and doing quite well, I fell victim to self-doubt and ultimately believed that I did not have the ability to graduate. Consequently, after only two years, I dropped out of college.

My mind was racing with thoughts about how I hated my major and never wanted to study history in the first place, how I didn’t feel I was smart enough for the school or scholarships I had earned and how I just really wanted to leave and go back to Holland because I did not love the school I thought I loved. The next day I met my mom at Aquinas College and after even more tears I explained how I wanted to drop out. After filling out paperwork and packing my things I left with my mom to Holland feeling like a failure because I dropped out of college not even forty- eight hours after moving in. When we got home my mom made a big dinner to cheer me up and said these words that still give me so much hope, “Today is the start of your new life”. After that day I truly began my new life, since I had so much time on my hands I started volunteering at Herrick District Library, a place that I have always loved, once a week, began learning how to drive and found a major that I am truly passionate about. Ultimately, I started doing what made me happy and it has turned a situation that looked sad, confusing and hopeless into a land of new

This is all thanks to my mom. She’s always been my support, she’s believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. She made sure I never gave up because you see, the thing is, I struggle from severe depression. My resume maybe long and impressive and this, that, and the other thing, but it didn’t matter. Not getting into NYU and spending a year studying in and breathing in the culture of Paris, I couldn’t get out of my rut. All this great things were happening to me but the stress of paying for tuition and the guilt of going to an expensive school began to weigh so heavily on me that I had to stop. I transferred schools hoping for a new start, but the same issues persisted. I had trouble paying for school, worked long hours outside of school with my paychecks being filtered to the school’s bursar. So I stopped again. I felt like a failure, I had no direction, I didn’t know what to do next. It was the first time in my life when I didn’t have a plan and a bullet point list of what I wanted to accomplish. But the experience that came from taking the time off from school has been

Every person has a moment in his or her life where everything he or she has always known changes forever. About every six years my mom gets a promotion in her job which makes us move to cities. So far I have lived in a total of four cities. My dad works from home, so he can live just about anywhere, but as a result, he has to travel often which leads him to be absent a lot. Personally, I am terrified of change, judgment, acceptance, and being forced into a new environment. It is also hard because you have to get to know everyone so well then leaving them behind not knowing when you will see them. I have learned that people, attitude, style, fashion and just about everything changes. Moving tends to have a negative connotation, but it does have

I first became aware of myself as a unique human being about a month ago because of things occuring in my life. I had a lot of new things going on in my mind last year for the first time. I didn’t know why it was this was happening to me, I thought there was something wrong with me. This is how I became aware of me being different from everyone else. *Personal*

My first experience as a freshman was not the best, but it sure was one of the funniest. I was excited and wanted to share the news with my family. My mom could not contain her laughter when she heard how she drove a bike too fast around downtown with an outdated knowledge of how. Their favorite part had been when the faces of the people were contorted in fear and their bodies screamed an alert, with the intention to step aside in the hope of avoiding me on the bicycle. Her laughter was pure. She laughed without worries. I still remember the last words of that conversation we had held on the telephone in Oglethorpe Square.

“Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you”. That is what my dad was saying in the big screen in front of me, quoting Aldous Huxley, next to my mom, both smiling widely and a bit dewy-eyed. It was a video they recorded unbeknownst to me that was being shown at the Jenkins Foundation scholarship awards ceremony; a night that will last in my memory for the rest of my life. An acknowledgment that came almost as unexpected as the realization that I would study in one of the best universities in Mexico. And, at the same time, a recognition that seemed to be just an obvious next step, the natural consequence of all that I had done and worked for up to that moment.

I was sitting in the plane going to where my mother lived when she was a kid, finally landing at the only airport in my entire state and the 45 min drive to my “home” I felt a new emotion I had never felt or known about at the time, anxious. First an outcast as an American with Indian heritage, but now as another outcast but this time as an Indian with American heritage. I recall on my thoughts that I had sprinting throughout my mind as the heat kept pounding against my skin. Not sure whether to be nervous, Thrilled, or homesick. It wasn’t the night my parents decided it was best for my brother and I to go to India and live there for 2 years it was that night, my first night sleeping without the same bed, power rangers bed set with yu-gi-yoh and Pokémon pillows that I had realized my life was never going to be the same.

The morning dew was still on the ground from the steady drizzle the night before as I glanced outside to inspect the weather. I woke up as usual that morning around three o’clock threw my sweatshirt on, stuffed my bag with a dry towel and suit, grabbed some breakfast, and headed off. I didn't rush this time frantically trying to make it there on time. Instead I walked to my car step by step as my mind slowly turned to mush from the feeling of my life slipping away. I knew that as an millennial older generations saw me as an sheltered child, coddled through all my problems. If only this was true I thought, oh how life would be different. I was being crushed by an ever growing pressure to remain swimming on an national level, but still obtain and function within my two jobs. On top of all of this school was to be my primary focus, but I was unable to effectively operate in my school work because of this consuming monster. To them though it's only two jobs, it's only swimming morning and afternoon, it's only school. To them we aren't teens or young adults but children who are given everything.

It was the summer before my eighth-grade year. I was thirteen years old and so excited for the upcoming school year. I earned a position on both the mixed and girls select choirs. I loved my school, I had a great group of friends, and life was good; or so I thought. On a muggy 100 degree July afternoon, my dad took my little sister and me on an “outing”. We walked to the nearby Zip- Trip gas station for finger freezing milkshakes. Once we purchased our chilly beverages, we proceeded to walk to Brentwood Park. We sat at a wooden picnic table held together by rusty nails and worn down by time. Etchings of hearts with initials inside covered the table like wrapping paper. The three of us chatted about our vacation to Portland and asked “get-to-know-you” questions. After about half an hour, there was a lull in the conversation and all that could be heard was the slurping of the last drops of cookies ‘n cream milkshakes. That’s when dad said he had some news. He announced that he received a job offer as the dentist on an army base, which was fantastic because he had been wanting to find a new position. Then the bomb dropped. The job was on Kwajalein in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and I had no clue where that was. We had 2 months to pack up, say our goodbyes, and leave. September 19th, 2013, we embarked on our new adventure. We flew from Washington to Colorado to Hawaii and on the 21st we arrived at Kwajalein. As soon as we stepped off the plane, we were bombarded by

Until I was about nine years old, I never felt uncomfortable about myself. Sure I had funny glasses, large frizzy hair, and a smile which stretched just a tad too wide, but it was just who I was. Fourth grade seemed to be the pivotal moment where the issues started which would later go on to shape the rest of my life. It started off innocently enough. Who do you like, do you want to go shopping, can I paint your nails, etc. I would respond simply. I don’t like anyone, I don’t want to go shopping, no I don’t want you to paint my nails. I had no idea then, but these were not the answers people expected me to give. They wanted to know which boy I liked, when we were going to go shopping, and how I wanted my nails painted. Shortly I found myself spending most of my time alone. I didn’t understand it. What was wrong with me? Why did I not like doing the things other girls liked doing? I feared the answers that I might give, so those questions went largely unanswered.

Imagine being in a family that always had so much going on, so many people running around going places, doing things, coming over, basically just always busy. Being the youngest it was never easy, always feeling like no one had time for me, not understand that I am not the only kid that has to be taken care of.

My childhood is filled with memories of my sister being my rock. We were best friends and she mothered me when our own mother couldn’t. We were both dealing with the same troubles and nice to share the experience with someone who understood the situation we were put in. She was also the ONLY one who was positive at the beginning of my pregnancy. I am sure she was also disappointed but she knew I wasn’t ruining my life. She didn’t make me feel like a complete failure. My mom told oldest sister and she led me away to speak alone. She told me how I disappointed her and she was excited to see me go off to college. It became the therapy everyone needed to tell me how much of a disappointment I was to them. However, they never took the time before to encourage me to make a future. After few days, my entire family knew because of a cousin who was untrustworthy. I went from feeling free to dreading family interactions.

Well, where do i start? The environment i grew up in was not a fun one. I was born in San Antonio and lived in Boerne until i was about 7-8 months old. My grandparents then bought a 15 acre property in Harper. We then lived there, and still live there today. I started school in Harper Elementary. Mrs. Payne was my Pre-k teacher. She helped me alot in that year. She sent me home with books because i was already reading. Throughout my elementary years i was a good smart kid. I had a few bad times but i was a good kid. I played baseball with a lot of kids that still go to this school. Baseball was my life. I loves playing it. I still do. Around my 1st grade year is when my parents started having problems. When i was 8 years old, the summer before my 2nd grade year, my parents got divorced. Elizabeth, my mother, took me and my sister chloe and we lived in Heritage Oaks in Ingram. Elizabeth met a man named Daniel Franz. Daniel moved in with us and married Elizabeth. Daniel was a good guy. He loved Chloe and me a lot. The summer before my 4th grade year we moved to Helotes. I attended Kuentz Elementary for two years. My best friend there was Jeremy Leal. He lived down the street and we played basketball everyday after school. I attended Garcia Middle school for my 6th grade year. I was in percussion and most of my friends were too so i always had fun. I was usually 2nd or 3rd chair after Preston and Alana. Elizabeth and Daniel wanted to buy a house so we moved to Laurel Canyon.

Out of all of my adventurous youthful years one event sticks out to me even to this day. Even though now it seems not particularly interesting or more important than anything else it still somehow persists within my memory. The event of which I am referring to happened around when I was 7, or maybe I was 6. My parents and I were going on a trip down to bennett springs state park, near Lebanon Missouri, to camp for a weekend.