The Sky Is Falling

I was thirteen when my sky fell, in the midst of that fragile time in all our lives when we discover who we are and decide who we will become.  The worst part about the sky falling is not just the fact that the sky is where the ground should be, but it is the fact that it flips the entire world upside-down.  For me, this came in the form of several adults that I had known and trusted my whole entire life.  They showed themselves to be something other than what I had always thought they were, breaking my trust and causing much hurt.  If it had happened at any other time in my life, perhaps it would not have affected me so much, but as it was, that event forever changed the type of person I have grown up to be.

When I was younger, I could be found running around with a smile, befriending everyone I met and trusting without question.  However, when my world was shaken, I was not left unscarred.  I had seen years’ worth of trust broken without a thought in a matter of moments.  After that, I was hesitant to offer such a fragile thing to anyone who had not proven themselves completely trustworthy.  Even when that happened to occur, I did not offer my trust easily.  I did not want to be hurt again, and it seemed only too likely to happen.

I gradually built up walls between myself and other people, not wanting to be used by someone who really did not care about me.  As this happened, I became more and more introverted, choosing to avoid other people altogether.  However, in becoming an introvert, my desires went to war with each other.  I didn’t want to be hurt again, but I still craved true friendships.  The problem with the position I was in was that true friendships required trust, which I still found hard to give.

In my mistrust, I began analyzing why people did things for me instead of accepting it as kindness.  In my mind, anything anyone did must have an ulterior motive behind it, because why else would they be doing it?  This kind of attitude is not healthy in any type of relationship and as a result, I found it even harder to become friends with anyone and drew even further inside myself.  My self-confidence sunk to new lows and I came close to experiencing depression for several months.

It has now been a little over four years since my sky fell and slowly it has been shifting back into place.  But when it fell, its impact shook my world and while things are going back to normal, I know I will never be quite the same as I was before.  There’s a saying that “Time heals all wounds” and I’m finding that to be true.  I’m beginning to trust others again and not draw inside myself every time I hit a conflict.  I’ve started making friends more easily, especially with those who have been in similar situations.  I still tend to be introverted, but not so much that it is unhealthy.  However, while time may heal all wounds, I have come to realize that it cannot erase all the scars.

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Yet another of my English assignments - Cause and Effect

Photo source: originally from http://atomictoasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/lightning.jpg -- text added by me

The Art of Expression

Sometimes, we can go through life on autopilot.  That is to say, we go through life without really considering the things we find important and why it is we value them so much; we just take everything for granted.  Recently, I have been thinking more about this topic and have tried to get past the usual cliché answers such as, “Food, because otherwise I would die.”  Or, “My computer, because I would die without being able to connect with my friends online!”  The list goes on and on.  Instead, I went beyond the surface and looked a little deeper at other things that have greatly affected my life and that I value.  Music, writing, and books are important to me because they have helped me learn how to express myself.

Music has always been an important part of my life, starting from when I was very young.  Mom is the pianist at our church, so there has always been music in the background.  Therefore, music has always symbolized safety, security, and love.  When I was about five, I started my own journey with music – learning how to play piano from my mom and singing my little heart out in Children’s Choir.  This later progressed to learning guitar, writing my own music, and almost constantly listening to something whether it was the radio, my iPod, or even my own head.  I am never without music.  Through all the ups and downs in life, music has always helped me speak without words, find words when I had none, and reminded me that no matter what is going on, other’s have been there too.  I don’t need words when I can pour my heart and soul into performing Chopin’s Nocturne in F minor, or Bach’s D minor Invention.  If I feel like I’m going to explode either with sadness or happiness, I pull out my notebook and write the first things that come to mind, then pull out my guitar and start singing it.  If I can’t find my own words, I just turn on my iPod and let them flow over me, telling me that I’m not the only one to feel like this.

When I was younger, I hated writing with a burning passion.  I loved to talk, but getting me to write a paragraph was like trying to pull a tooth that isn’t all the way loose.  Both are difficult and painful.  However, once I discovered that writing was really only putting my thoughts and words on paper, I was all over it; particularly when it involved creative writing.  Storytelling was something I’d always loved, and now I could keep my stories somewhere other than just in my head. Along the way, writing grew to be more that just telling stories; I started telling my story.  If I had a rough day, I would pull out my journal and let all my feelings pour out onto the page.  Or, if it had been a particularly good day, I would write it all down so I could remember it the next time I was feeling down.  Eventually my feelings towards writing versus talking balanced out after going each direction – more talking, less writing; less talking, more writing – and now I’m able to use writing as a way of telling my story to the people I’m unable to talk to face-to-face.

I’ve always been what one might call a “book worm,” even when I was younger.  Instead of playing video games as a kid, I could be found curled up in a corner under a blanket with a book.  Being sent outside to play meant that instead of sneaking out a Nintendo DS, I was sneaking out a book to read once I’d climbed out of sight in a tree.  To my dad’s dismay, I never particularly enjoyed “real literature” which I thought of as old and boring but instead let myself be carried away by tales of knights in shining armor, mysteries that only I could solve, and the occasional historical novel.  I reveled in the thought of being able to escape to another world where I could be anyone I wanted and travel anywhere I wanted.  This carried over into my life as I started growing up, decided what I wanted to do with my life, and how I would choose to act.  Reading helped shape me into the person I am now – a girl who loves the thought of adventure, dreams of her own knight in shining armor, and wants to change her world.  Maybe one day all those things will happen.

All of these things are important to me, even though they might not be things that one would first think of as being valuable.  They have all affected my life in very important ways – helping me become who I am today, helping me tell my story, and helping me express myself.  There is one last thing I would like to point out, however.  While each of these are very important to me, there is something else that I value even more.  The most important thing in my life is my relationships with my family and with my friends, and there is no way to sum that up in one short essay.

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This is another essay I wrote for my English course - probably why it's better formulated than most other things I post on here!

Photo Credit: 

  -Music - http://www.real.com/resources/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/streaming-MP41.jpg

  -Writing - http://braultp.free.fr/Photos_images/Snoopy%20writing%20bande%20NB.jpg

  -Reading - http://rlv.zcache.com/reading_rocks_poster-r7327341e7b2740c2a20a575d229d58d4_w8v_8byvr_512.jpg?bg=0xffffff

  -Important - http://www.itsalwaysautumn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/what-is-most-important_chalkboard.jpg

How TeenPact Changed My Life

Ever since I was little, I have been terrified of public speaking.  No matter how hard my mom tried to get me involved in public speaking contests to help me get over my fear, it never quite worked.  One year, however, we heard about a weeklong hands-on government class called TeenPact designed to talk about many things including leadership, current events, government, and public speaking.  In the five years following, TeenPact has taught me that my fear of public speaking limits my potential, and has helped me towards overcoming that fear.

The first time I heard about TeenPact, I could not see past the fact that I would have to stand up in front of everyone and read a mock bill that I had written to see what other benefits the class offered.  Somehow I avoided the weeklong class, but I couldn’t get out of the public speaking class TeenPact offered at the end of the week.  My sister had attended the class and loved it, but my reaction was quite the opposite.  Over lunch, while everyone else was writing their speeches, I became so nervous that I burst into tears and refused to participate—I convinced myself that I would embarrass myself and the world would end.

The next year, no matter how much I protested, I was forced to go—the phrase “dragged kicking and screaming” doesn’t come anywhere close to describing my reaction.  The thought of reading my bill in front of everyone still terrified me, but as I was waiting for my turn, one of the staffers took the time to reassure me that standing up in front everyone still scared them.  With that knowledge, I was able to go onto the stage, knees shaking, voice trembling, to read the first few paragraphs and later call my mom to say that I was enjoying it after all. After that, I let myself take everything in and began realizing that I was only holding myself back by allowing the fear of public speaking to control me.  Once I realized that I was the only thing holding myself back, TeenPact started not only teaching me leadership, government, and public speaking, but also the self-confidence I needed to help me get over my fear.

Two years later, I found myself willingly standing on that stage to argue in favor of my mock bill and answer questions about it--essentially an impromptu speech.  The next year, I did the same thing, but in addition to that, I begged to be allowed to stay for the public speaking class after the main class was over--the same one that had brought me to tears five years earlier.  Now that I was taking these steps towards overcoming my fear, I decided to take it a step further and help others do the same.  After the extreme reaction I had after my first encounter with TeenPact, if someone were to have told me that a few years later, I would be applying to staff that very same class, I would have laughed in their face.  And yet, that’s exactly what I did.   

In a span of five years, TeenPact transformed a thirteen-year-old who was scared senseless at the thought of having to give a short speech into a seventeen-year-old who was biting at the bit to become more involved in public speaking opportunities.  Not to say that public speaking no longer scares me, and not to say that it is my favorite past time, but I no longer burst into tears at the thought of giving a speech.  I simply remember what my first TeenPact staffer told me and remember that it’s okay to still be scared, as long as I don’t let it control me.

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This is an essay I wrote for an English assignment a few weeks ago.  Also, if any of you somehow have stumbled across my blog or know me and somehow haven't heard about TeenPact, here's their website: www.teenpact.com

Photo Credit: http://www.mafamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/teen-pact-rectangle.png