Personal Narrative Analysis

Sunday mornings used to consist of lethargic snuggling underneath oversized thermal blankets while binge-watching Netflix for hours with family. Weekends were my favorite because it was the one time during the week I was able to laze in the comforting presence of my mother whom I rarely encountered because of her hectic work schedule. Since my parents divorced when I was only about five years old, I was raised by a hard-working single mother for the majority of my life, 2,614 miles away from my estranged father whom I rarely talk to except on birthdays and national holidays. Not only did my mother have to balance supporting me, but also my grandfather in the Philippines who was in critical condition after his third stroke in May of last year. My aunts and uncles could not cover the medical expenses on their own, so my mother invested as much as she could for the sake of her father. The distress and devastation my mother

experienced for our "papang" understandably caused her to be emotionally unavailable for me, so I had to take responsibility for myself for a while. Considering that I took on plenty of AP classes and just started driving, I had various academic and personal expenses to manage. I felt that I would be asking too much if I expected my mother alone to pay for my AP exams, school supplies, gas money, car insurance, and monthly phone payment on top of her own accumulating bills. To lessen the financial burden and emotional stress on my mother, I decided to apply for my first job at the beginning of my senior year.
Sunday mornings now consisted of hours of frantic running around a lonely, frigid restaurant wearing a dampened apron.

Mondays consisted of strenuous battling of heavy eyelids while sitting through monotonous lectures. The rest of the week became a repetitious cycle of attending school, working, and coming home late to finish hours of AP coursework. Because I worked a minimum wage job, I had to take on as many shifts possible and accumulate as many hours as I could to earn a decent amount of money. However, I found the job extremely time-consuming and fatiguing. Luxuries of "sleep" and "leisure time" vanished from my vocabulary. I had less time to focus on school and could not create opportunities to do my usual after school tutoring for my peers. Because I arrived home close to midnight during the weekdays, I often rushed to finish my homework just so that I could go straight to sleep. Gradually, my grades began to slip. Though I was physically present in class, I was too busy dozing off to be mentally present and absorb any useful

information.
As for my grandfather, months of fighting and attempting recovery were soon followed by his sudden, yet peaceful passing on his birthday, October 10, 2016. I didn't want to go to school or work, and I had little passion for doing the things I usually did. Considering the close bond I had with him from a very young age, I lost my hope, appetite, and motivation to do anything–especially homework and other assignments. It wasn't until a little before finals week that I realized that I could no longer procrastinate because was quickly running out of time. If I didn't make a change then, all of the hard work I invested into high school up until that point would have gone to waste.
After some thought and self-reflection, I reminded myself that the purpose of me having a part-time job while in school was to learn how to be more independent, earn my own money, and help relieve some of the financial burden my mother was experiencing while she supported her father. My main priority was to finish strong during my senior year so that I could get accepted into a good college–not only just for my mother's or grandfather's sake, but more importantly for my own sake as well. As the end of the first semester was fast approaching, I requested less hours at work and instead invested more time and focus on school. I scrambled to study and turn in missing assignments to try and make up for the lack of effort I demonstrated before. I attended more school events to truly experience and cherish my last year of high school. I even invested more hours tutoring my peers and others in the community need of academic assistance, which in turn helped me review concepts and topics that I needed to study anyway for upcoming exams. Slowly but surely, I was able to adjust my priorities and get myself back on track before irrevocable damage had been done.
Adulthood does not always politely knock on your door once you turn eighteen, or even twenty-one. It often barges in unannounced, withholding any opportunity for you to prepare for its arrival. Though I am still in an awkward transition phase, the difficult situations I experienced in just this year alone have matured me and allowed me to grow into someone that can better manage added responsibilities. In the midst of it all, I've made sure not to lose track of my true priorities and learned to become more independent and take care of myself when my parents weren't able to, a quality that I must have as I make my next transition into college.