Personal Narrative Essay

889 Words2 Pages

“Why don’t you use your locker? You’re going to have back problems before you even graduate”. These are words that are repeated to me daily, almost like clockwork. I carry my twenty-pound backpack, full of papers upon papers from my AP classes. The middle pouch of my backpack houses my book in which I get lost to distract me from my unrelenting stress. The top pouch holds several erasers, foreshadowing the mistakes I will make - and extra lead, to combat and mend these mistakes. Thick, wordy textbooks full of knowledge that has yet to become engraved in my brain, dig the straps of my backpack into my shoulders. This feeling, ironically enough, gives me relief - my potential and future success reside in my folders and on the pages of my notebooks. …show more content…

I prefer the smell of my mother’s home-cooked meals and candles to the smell of alcohol and my friends’ fruity, potent car air-conditioners. I will laugh, I will smile, but inside I twist, ache, and yearn to watch CNN and talk politics with my father. I carry the greater fear of making an appearance in a group more than the risky moves my friends will make. In the palm of my hand, I hold pieces of my family: my father’s intellect, my brother’s independence, and my mother’s nurturement. The piece of my father makes “being a teenager” unattractive and unappealing. I am a young adult - I am no teenager. The piece of my mother causes me to assume the motherly role in my group of friends, but the nurturement I offer is precisely what they seek to escape. I fear their reckless driving. The piece of my brother gives me a sense of self - it is perfectly acceptable to love yourself within the parameters of your own …show more content…

Raised by an agnostic father and a Catholic mother, I played religious tug-of-war. During my eight years of Catholic PSR study, I moved through the motions, much like a puppeteer commanding his rag figures on a string. I listened to hypocritical “teachers”, commanding me to cut ties with my Muslim friends for fear that they are most likely terrorists and to look down to gay members of our own community. Well aware of these prejudice intolerances, I said nothing, but I did I go home and continue my practices of Catholicism. Following the sacrament of confirmation, I broke away from the church and reverted to atheism - never could I support a cause that preaches intolerance and disgust towards another human being. I did not carry this ideology: I lugged it, I tugged it, I hauled it. I desired a relationship with the Lord, but I was infuriated with the way I was taught to connect with Him. After four interminable years of refusing to listen to the Lord’s calling, I took a leap of faith that I never envisioned possible - I visited a non-denominational Christian church with the man I love the most. Dressed in my Sunday-best on a Wednesday, I walked up four stairs in my tall wedges, heart pounding and stomach turning. My inner voice scolded me and said, “You turned your back on the Lord for four years, he will condemn you upon entering a holy place”. I opened my eyes and what I saw took me by surprise - men wore athletic shorts

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