Michelle                                                                          Expos. Writ. – Ms.Gokturk

Due date: 9-17 -’03                                                                 Personal Narrative

 

 

When my life turned around

 

I never knew before that something could actually change the way one lives or that the direction in which a person’s life will go could take place in a matter of one day. Well actually, it was less than a day. More like a few minutes, at most. And so, all it took was a moment that wholly altered my life.

My heart was beating out of its regular rhythm, my breathing a little faster. After all, who can blame me? It was my first time (not counting the numerous times that I’ve supposedly traveled when I was a baby) riding on an airplane, as far as I remember.. I was told that I would be living in a whole new country, where people did not speak the language I had grown up with. I would be crossing the Pacific Ocean, which was a bigger extension of the beaches I used to go in the summer. Truth be told, I was nervous and somewhat scared. But heck, who cares? I was going to see my mom whom I haven’t seen for the past year, and my grandma was there to safely escort me to her.

Just a few weeks ago, I was staying at my grandparents, since the August of last year, while my mom was in the U.S. settling down. She had applied a year and a half before to go and start studying to get her doctor’s degree (Ph.D). If, after a time there, she decided she could manage living in a new country, along with the difficulties that language and other new surroundings presented, then, and only then would I go there as well. One day, the conversation which ended up turning my life around took place.

“Grandma, when am I going to see mommy?” I asked.

“Oh sweetie.. Do you miss your mom a lot?” grandma replied.

“Uh huh,” I vigorously nodded my head up and down.

At this moment, grandma had paused for a moment. Then she asked, “Would you like to go America, where your mom is?”

I, being only the seven year old that I was, out of my strong desire to see my mom, answered, “UH HUH!!” I hadn’t had the faintest clue as to what I was agreeing to. The only thing that mattered in my head at that moment was that I was finally going to see my mom after six months, although it had seemed like a year for me at the time. Originally, my mom had planned that if she decided it would be alright for her, I would come to the U.S. a year later. Due to my missing her so much, however, her plans were overturned.

After all the preparations were over, I was at the airport with my grandma, my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Many of my relatives had come to bid me farewell, for I would not be seeing them again for a few years. At first, the reality of the situation had not yet struck me. It felt like almost any other day, when all of us got together to go to the amusement park, or even to the beach. Except that we were in a huge building that was called an airport. My cousins and I were running around (mind you, I was only in second grade), playing tag. We ate a bit of something at the airport restaurant and waited until it was time to board. After the goodbye exchanges, of which I had not known the true meaning of, my grandmother and I went through the gates.

“Click,” the metal portion of the seatbelt snapped together. There was no turning back now. As the engines started and roared, I braced myself for some unknown experience. The trip took 16 hours, during which time, my anxiety was subdued. The announcement, “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be arriving at our final destination, John F. Kennedy airport, in just a few minutes. Please remain seated and fasten your seatbelts. Thank you,” spurred a series of excited murmurs of people returning home. I peered out the window, and low and behold, in the midst of complete darkness, there shone the outline of the new country in lights.

After we’d landed and went through the baggage claims, my grandma and I walked, my heart skipping with each step, towards the door that would lead us out of the customs area. The white door slid open, and a loud, large crowd greeted us. I saw the faces, different from the ones I was used to, and realization struck. I had actually left the place that had been the center of the conscious part of my life and had come to stay here. Just as I stepped out of the airport itself, cold, fresh air sharply greeted my lungs, giving me notice of my new environment. “So this was America, seemingly similar to my old surroundings and yet totally different,” I thought.

The event leading out of my “yes” to my grandma’s question about moving here took place during the beginning of second grade. About a week after arriving here, I was to be enrolled in school. That first day, as I marched into the classroom, empty because it was early in the morning, with my hand in my mom’s, I still did not know what to expect, which only raised my apprehension more. I was being introduced to my second grade teacher, when a girl my age walked in with her backpack. She took one look at me and her whole face lit up into a bright smile, as a child often does when she’s found something that has special meaning to her and only her. The girl’s voice was just as eager and her waive equally enthusiastic, as she said the one word that made me feel that everything was going to be alright: “Hi!”

            Right then and there, that I knew for sure I would survive and even enjoy this new place. And because of the strength and courage that Kennie, the name belonging to the girl with the bright enthusiasm, had given me that first morning, I was able to face all else without hesitation or uncertainty, nor with fear. I had gained strength in knowing that people here were just as nice, and also in the fact that there was space here, for me to fit in. As the next few days passed by in school, I became fast friends with many other kids in the class. My teacher, Mrs.Deguerre, was the sweetest and the gentlest teacher I had ever known and had also helped me, along with my new friends, to feel at home. And like that, I grew up with those friends, including more new ones as the years passed  up until eighth grade graduation, by which time, I had come to know every single person in my grade.

            Even to this day, I cannot help but wonder from time to time, how my life would’ve been different from the one I am living right now, had I answered my grandma differently. I ask myself the question, “Would I have been happier? Or would I have been unhappy?” And regardless of that particular question, I imagine my life would’ve been completely different, having grown up in another country, with a whole different set of traditions and culture. As the saying “the environment in which one grows, shapes him or her” states, I would’ve grown to be a person, entirely unlike the one I am today. Yet,  I also know that, given the circumstances of my being too young to really understand the “bigger picture” (the consequences), I would’ve said yes to my grandma about going to live in the U.S. with my mom, a million times over.