My Roller Coaster Life
by Michael Philip G. Gonzalez
I consider myself to be an ordinary Filipino teenager living an ordinary life. I study at a good Catholic school, I have good friends, and live with a happy, loving family. At first glance, I may appear to have had a typical uneventful life. But my life so far has been a roller coaster, fast paced and full of unexpected twists and turns.
After I was born in 1985, I lived in the suburbs outside New York City. In my early childhood I made friends with neighbors and other children my age. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until 1991. That's the year when my family and I moved to the state of California, thousands of miles away. I was only six years old at the time, and the life in New York was the only life I knew. I was forced to part from my friends and suddenly forced into a new environment with new people. It was a very frustrating experience.
Living in California was not as bad as I expected. I made new friends to replace my old ones, and my life eventually got back on track. It was in California that I had my first communion and confession. I studied there until grade 4. Then my life took another drastic turn - my family and I moved all the way to the other side of the world, to the Philippines.
Everything was different in my new home. People, culture, language, the entire way of life was different from what I had grown used to in the United States. The transition was long and painful. Even to this day I feel that there are many facets of Filipino culture that I go not know much about.
In 1997, my grandfather died. This came as a sudden shock to me because my grandfather had been rather close to me since I was born. I remembered him so well, and suddenly he was gone. This was the first death of someone that was close to me.
In 2000, I had a three-day Youth Encounter with my classmates. I have spent years of my life with these people, but I always felt more like an observer in the class instead of part of it. This Youth Encounter was a significant event to me because I discovered a lot about myself and my classmates. Here I realized that the school was like a second home, and the class was like my second family.
I currently do not have much plans for the future. I have been accepted into the Ateneo de Manila University, so I might study there for college. Anything is possible, because life is a roller coaster full of twists and turns. Troubles can come my way without warning. As life goes on, it's hard to see what's around the corner, so I will just have to be ready for it when it comes.