Undergraduate / My own reflection; UCHICAGO/ Relationship between me and "ARCH NEMESIS" [9]

Hey Guys!

So I am aware I need major edits! Can you guys help me? That'll be very nice! Thank you very much! (:

"A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies." -Oscar Wilde.
Othello and Iago. Dorothy and the Wicked Witch. Autobots and Decepticons. History and art are full of heroes and their enemies. Tell us about the relationship between you and your arch-nemesis (either real or imagined).

Slowly pacing through the faded, insular pathway, where I was surrounded by uncountable souls, I dragged myself to the tapered alleys. Constantly being pounded with thoughts in my mind, I silently rested my back to the marbled walls. Just then a storm of wind gushed through my hair, forcing me to cover my face. As I let go of it, the environment became tremendously obscure and hazy. I panicked; turned out I missed my train so I moved forward lazily to look at the schedule. Just then something strange caught my attention. Blood heavily sprinted through my veins, my heart began to race, and I felt my muscles tightened. Although the image was ridiculously ambiguous, I could just tell who she was. Thin lips, small eyes and long dark hair draped on her shoulders; I faintly recognized the image through the stained glass of my biggest enemy in the world.

Like a solid piece of thin candle wax, that's how my life was; just a little wave of heat and it'll melt and break its molecules. It was my rival who had build up a volcano of anger within me, and had enforced me to give up on the relationship between my family and me since we migrated to USA. I was muted to the world around me. It was tremendously difficult to adjust. I was falling behind in classes. I remember staring at people's lips trying to make out the strange language they spoke for I could only speak Urdu. I spent weeks crying yet no one came to place their hands over my head as an act of kindness. My hopes of getting into a good high school died because my enemy kept on telling me to give up. I was innocent and she enforced me to fall every time I tried to do my very best to get up. For the longest I believed that I might not even have a bright future. I made it to high school and although I was one of the brightest, I felt like a failure because I wasn't going to one of the most academically challenging school like my other friends. Missing several tennis shots, throwing a weak punch, diminishing stamina, not getting the grade that I wanted, failing at getting accepted to certain academic programs; everything aggravated me. My enemy kept on telling me to give up, she told me that nothing is worth my effort and every time I fell instead of giving a hand to raise me up, she told me to stay down and that I'll always be weak, and a failure. I lost many friends along the way, and many opportunities to explore the world, to gain knowledge because of the disappointments I faced in school whether academically or socially. Not a single word of the wise was given to me, instead my rival, whom I kept listening to without knowing her, enforced me to hold back. And to my surprise I listened to everything she said. I let her take control of my life; I was the puppet and she was the master.

That's when it hit me, I wanted vengeance and the only way was to keep running after my goals, and to stop listening to what she has to say. It's not true that I only faced failures; they just became the highlights of my life because my enemy implanted those horrendous events in my mind. The truth was I was an exceptional individual and I encountered uncountable successful moments. I just allowed myself to forget the positive side and let only the negative be part of the story of my life.

I walked up to confront her and slowly the image of her began to clear up. Just then my body felt like a feather floating in the air, my muscles became loose, my blood froze and my eyes widened. I couldn't tell her how much I hated the way she had destroyed the little events in my life which could've been precious; I was ashamed.

Tears were streaming down my cheeks and a realization occurred to me; there's no one in the world who can stop me from achieving my goals, to find inner peace and to live happy, besides me for I am the owner of my experiences. I am the puppet and the master.

Perhaps all of this began to make sense when I realized the girl with thin lips, small eyes and long dark hair was no one but me, my own reflection.