#self essay

[patriciiape]

In the perennial battle between maintaining dignity and playing out the joke, the joke always wins.

[maybeimjustalittlegirl-blog]

Kiki - A Self Essay

Four-sixteen A.M. Why am I awake? The sun hasn’t begun his ascent into the morning yet, so neither should I. Closing my eyes, I toss this way and that. Curl, uncurl. Bury my face in the pillow, throw it off my bed. Cocoon myself in my blanket and unravel myself. Kick off the sheets; pull them back over my head. Switch to the right side of the bed; then, it becomes the wrong side, so I roll back to the other. It’s not working. Thoughts are racing a thousand meters per second—or, rather, a thought—singular—is running and running and running and running…. I can’t shake it. It won’t rest. It’s stuck.

I decide sleep is hopeless, arise from the bed, and switch my lamp on. The light hurts my eyes. I scramble for a remedy; stick in my ear buds, and in comes soothing anesthetic rhythms pouring into my anxious soul. I pull my knees hard against my chest to ease the ache inside.

Two months—I can still see her distorted body on the ground, her chest rapidly rising and falling as she heaved for oxygen, the vacant expression in her eyes. Time has not worn out the grotesque image from my mind. The bleeding from the memory has stopped, but collagen has yet to fill the gash it left. Everyone tells me time heals all wounds, but does it fill the hollow?

*   *   *

It happened during the hottest day of the hottest summer in Texas. My family and I had just returned early from an Independence Day camping trip at Lake Murray. As a routine, we came through our backyard because the garage door remote didn’t work anymore. The only problem with this was our dog, Kiki, who was notorious for running away. So, carefully, we eased the door open so as to not let her out; however, when I slid my body into the backyard, prepared to shove her hulking body from the door, I realized she wasn’t there to smother me with loving licks. “Kiki?” I called out. “Hey, girl, look who’s home!”

No answer.

I walked over to her doghouse. Besides the two bowls we had filled with water and food before we left (both of which were stilled filled and untouched), it was vacant. I whistled and beaconed her again. “Kiki! Come here, girl! Where are you?” I searched around the corner towards the back entrance where I found her lying stagnantly on the patio.

“Hey, there! Did you miss us?” I greeted her enthusiastically.

She raised her head and glanced at me with an exhausted, miserable expression. I came to her side to scratch behind her ear. Her black fur felt like a furnace. No wonder she looked awful. “Oh, you silly dog,” I sighed. “Why don’t you lie in the shade instead, and drink some water?”  I tried helping her up, but she made no effort to budge. She just laid her head back down on the pavement and stared blankly at the fence. Worry pinched and pricked in my chest. I had never seen Kiki so…dead.

Kiki was known to be active and playful, even in her old age. She had the energy of a puppy, racing down the neighborhood as we chased after her, jumping all over us every time we opened the back door, digging holes in every plot of my mother’s garden, barking at every object that passed by the house (including the wind). With every year she aged she was filled with new life.

However, in the few months leading up to the Fourth of July of 2011, we had noticed a gradual depression in her activity. It began when she escaped from right under our noses for the umpteenth time. My mom and I pursued her, as usual, screaming for her to stop. To both of my mom’s and my surprise, she did just that. She stopped, turned around, and willingly returned to us.

It was the strangest thing. Kiki wasn’t one to give up, especially when it came to a game of catch me if you can. “Maybe she’s finally learning,” my mother laughed in relief. My mom loathed Kiki; I suppose she had every right to. Kiki had given her so much trouble since the day my dad brought her into the family fifteen years ago. If it were up to my mom, she would have left her at the pound the first time the dogcatcher snatched her up. But, thanks to the bleeding heart of my dad, she could never get rid of her.

In the weeks preceding that day, I noticed the majority of Kiki’s time was spent in heavy sleep. No sound would wake her, not even the creak of the opening door. Typically, she would be there to greet you faster than you could get through; now she would not come unless she saw you, or if you stood a couple feet away from her and spoke.

I had expected this day to come. After all, she was fifteen years old—the ripe age of 105 in dog years. But this was Kiki we were talking about. She was indestructible, she was unstoppable. Nothing could slow her down, not even the wear and tear of age. I couldn’t fathom Kiki aging, let alone dying. She had been there since I could remember, and I believed she would continue to be here forevermore. Watching her slowly decline and succumb to her mortality eradicated my childish fantasy.

I scratched Kiki’s back, kissed her forehead, and assured her that I would return.

As I walked inside, I expressed my concern to my mother.

“Oh, it’s hot,” she said. “She’s probably dehydrated like the rest of us. We can give her a bath right after we eat. I’m sure that will make her feel better.”

With that, we all sat down at the table, blessed the box of Kentucky Fried Chicken we bought on the road home, and dug in. After we finished, I gathered all the leftover bones and scraps of chicken onto a plate to give to Kiki. If anything could make Kiki feel better, it was fresh leftovers from the dinner table.

When I came up to the backyard, to my horror I found her fallen on her side, gasping for air as if her frail body collapsed from underneath her when she attempted to arise and walk.

I immediately cried out to my parents.

“What’s going on?” My dad asked.

“Kiki—it’s Kiki. Something is wrong with her. She looks like she fell over while getting up, and she sounds like she’s struggling for breath and…”

My father dashed to the window to investigate the scene, then immediately told my mother to grab a bottle of cold water and my brothers to come help him.

The moments following afterward are still muggy to me. Time collapsed just as my dog did on the pavement. My brain panicked and shut off. I thought for sure I was hallucinating, that this was nothing more than a vivid dream my fried brain cells were fabricating. I had just spent a whole day and a half at the lake under the blistering sun, so it was completely possible that I was still knocked out in the car because this couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. Kiki was indestructible, invincible, and immortal.

Indestructible. Invincible. Immortal.

These are the words that echoed in my mind as I felt the apologetic embrace of my mother, the hand of reassurance from my brother, and the surreal words of my father confirming my fears.

Indestructible. Invincible. Immortal.

If a being as resilient as my fifteen-year-old dog could be affected by the elements of life, then what did that mean for me? No matter how much strength I built, would I, too, eventually suffer mortality?

In that moment I felt like the infinity of my childhood died with Kiki. My stronghold, my crutch, my foundation now decaying, deceased, and extinct.

Where do I go from here?

*  *  *

Two months ago she left. Two months ago she abandoned me to this awful state of limbo. Two months ago I lost my childhood. Two months, and I am still here. Why?

I finally arise from my bed and decide to carry my heavy body down the hallway to the backyard. My legs feel like lead as I drag them towards the door. It’s time to face the cold reality. It’s time to grow up.

Taking a deep breath, I clasp the doorknob and, without preamble, ease open the door. As soon as I do, my instinct is to brace myself against the weight of my jubilant dog; then I remember she isn’t there to be pounced by, and the dull ache returns. It makes me want to turn away, but I can’t. Not anymore. I have avoided this for too long. I swing the door open, and a rush of cool air bites my skin along with the memory of that dreadful afternoon. I soak in the scene. It’s all so familiar yet completely foreign. The grass is taller, and patches that were once barren are budding with fresh grass; the leaves on the tree are yellowing; the play-set has spider-webbing between the poles; the paint on the shed is peeling off; the birds in the trees are lively despite the early hour.

It’s strange. For some reason I expected life to end with Kiki, but the spider keeps spinning, the grass keeps growing, the paint continues to chip, and the birds commence their ballads.

The world keeps turning; life continues.

So why don’t I?

[vintagexequestrian]

If anyone ever wanted extreme insight into me . . .

Here is my essay about myself I had to write for AP English (if anyone reads this and sees any grammar mistakes please let me know!)

Imagine for me now that every person starts out as a blank slate of marble. There are the marks unique to each slate, representing one’s chemical make-up. The skill of the sculptor represents one’s childhood environment. Finally, there are the individual marks made by the artist. These marks are indelible. These marks are life’s experiences. Life’s experiences can also be expressed in the term ‘memories’. Each and every one of us holds good and bad memories within. However, there are those memories that one can simply replay in his head as if they had happened minutes ago, though these memories hold no obvious significance. To me, it is those seemingly random memories that define a person.

            Keeping that in mind, I introduce myself to you. My name is Lindsay (deleting the last bit since it is very personal info).  My life is a balancing act. Horseback riding is my passion, large waves terrify me, and I care more about fictional characters than I probably should. These are details, the minor players who make me who I am. The true leading roles that come together to create me are these three traits; distrust, pride and strength.

            One of my earliest, most distinctive memories happened when I was six years old. I was walking down the back porch steps with my mother, my fingers trailing nervously along the railings as I timidly told my mother about the boy I had a crush on in my 1st grade class. My mother laughed before responding to my admission. Her response has gotten lost over the years, but I am certain it was not what I wanted to hear. The memory then skips two weeks later in our family room. I walked in to find my mother, father and brother, who was eight at the time, laughing. Immediately my brother and father started teasing me about the boy I had a crush on. I did not understand at first how they could have known. Then I realized; my mother had told them. I stormed from the room, stomping up the stairs and spent the rest of the night alone. For years, I never knew why I had remembered that moment. Why it had stuck with me all this time, when happier, or even more tragic days were forgotten?  I realize now, that was the moment I stopped trusting my family. Never again would I share anything I considered personal with a family member. To this day if my mother tries to break down the wall and peer into my world, I return with bricks and cement, ever-ready to build my wall taller and stronger. That is where my first trait, distrust, was formed.

            Pride. It is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Despite that, I admit openly I am guilty of it. Following the theme that seemly insignificant memories make a person, I fast forward three years to the fourth grade. In this class, every Monday, after the Pledge of Allegiance, a different person got to stand before the class and share something he was excited about. On a week when it was my friend Paige’s turn, she shared that in her last horseback riding lesson she had gotten to canter. As a fellow rider myself I should have been happy for friend’s accomplishment. I was not. I was drowning in the fact that my friend had gotten to canter before I had. I hated feeling as if she were better than I was. That afternoon I went to my own riding lesson and asked when I would be able to canter, my instructor said when I proved to her I was ready. So I did. I proved to her I was more than ready, and eventually, I succeeded. I do not believe my pride came from this moment, I still do not understand why pride is one of my main attributes, but I understand that this moment was an early manifestation of my pride. I admit this trait so openly because, while it often makes me feel terrible about myself, I grow from it and use it to motivate me to improve.

            My final trait came not from a single memory but over the course of three years, from sixth to eighth grade. Between being shipped off to live with different relatives, forced to go attend another school in hopes of teaching me a lesson, and military school a constant threat, my family was miserable. I was miserable. Life, was miserable. A particular memory from seventh grade stands out to me. My brother and my father had gotten into an argument on the ride home from our lake house. Following the fight, my brother, who was fourteen at the time, was left in tears beside me. In a moment of uncharacteristic softness, I reached out my hand to pat his back as I averted my eyes out the window. I promised myself then that I would never be the person crying after a fight. Since that day, after an argument, once I have stormed to my room and feel the sting of tears threatening to spill from my eyes, I punch a wall. And I punch that wall over and over until the mental pain in my head, transfers to physical pain in my hand. Because that I can handle. A year after I had made this promise to myself, my life would change for the better because of one book. At a time when I hated my own life, through reading, I could escape into someone else’s, if only for a few moments. The book was Percy Jackson and the Olympians; The Lightning Thief. Within its pages I discovered the character of Annabeth Chase. I identified with so many aspects of her life - aside from the fact that I am not a daughter of Athena. Her character proved to me that a person can go through anything, as long as he remains strong. And so I decided to approach my life taking with me the lessons I had learned from that book. And suddenly, everything was not so bad. Things turned around from there. I took more of an interest in school, stopped feeling sorry for myself, and moved on.  By the same time the next year I would have read this book twenty-eight times, and completed the five book series a total of seventeen. The book became my safety blanket to comfort and guide me when I did not have anything else. As a result of this book’s influence and the tough times I faced in these three years, I grew into my final trait. Strength.

            With all that said, some would argue these are not positive traits, but in my mind they are. I find happiness, and success as a result of them, and essentially they are me. Maybe they will change one day as I continue to experience all that life has to offer. And so, with each passing moment, my sculptor chisels away the marble, the most minute stroke effecting the final result, until the end, when the statue of me is all that’s left.

[belovedteresa-blog]

Valiant

val·iant   [val-yuhnt] adjective

1. boldly courageous; brave; stout-hearted: a valiant soldier.

2. marked by or showing bravery or valor; heroic: to make a valiant effort.

3. worthy; excellent.

I have been thinking of a word to describe what makes me a human lately. I came up with Valiant. If anything, for the simple fact that I absolutely never, ever give up. I’m talking on anything, on the big things and the little things. There’s a part of me that is headstrong. When I want something I will fight for it. When I was sick I fought for my life, when I lost control I fought for it, when I wanted to win I fought for it. I am tiny and I am weak, but I am a fighter. I will repay those who have done me right and I will remember those who have done me wrong. When what it takes will take courage, I am the one who does it. When everything is at risk, I am the one who steps up. I will fight for love, I will fight for what I believe in, no matter what, I will fight. So when you remember me, remember that I tried. Remember that I never gave up, that I had courage when others did not. Remember that I was valiant.