In this essay, I talk about the world I come from and how it has shaped me into who I am today. Any suggestions/criticism is greatly welcomed.
I will never forget the cold December day when I came home to find my mother frantically packing our belongings. My father, who had emigrated from Armenia to America three years earlier, had made the long-awaited call to inform my mother that our family would soon reunite in America. Yet, I did not know whether this was good or bad news. Of course, I wanted to see my father, but at the age of nine, moving, especially to a foreign country, was a frightening idea.
My father's call marked the emergence of tributaries that have combined to make me the person I am today. These tributaries do not merely consist of rivers but are a collection of different bodies of water.
In United States, life fell short of the impeccable world that my parents had promised it to be. I became trapped in a swamp- forcing me to only see the glumness in life. My father became so burdened with putting food on our table and keeping a roof over our heads that I barely saw him. My mother's health confined her to the bed, spilling her housekeeping chores onto my plate. The dictionary, that now has yellow faded pages, came to be my best friend as I translated countless documents for my parents into Armenian. It became my duty to ensure my younger sister correctly completed her assignments, did her chores and was well-behaved, when I was merely a year older than her. The rejection felt from society was swimming in an ocean with open wounds as the salt accentuated the adversity of being an immigrant. Going to school was walking into a lake-first, repelled by the tiny rocks poking the soles of my feet, but then feeling a rush of relaxation and a sense of accomplishment once I had walked over them.
But my parents claimed that I was the fortunate one. How? As a fourth grader, I couldn't understand. I felt like both, a mother and a child-I was learning in school, exploring the world, discovering life and teaching it to my sister concurrently, when I was expecting to be taught. At times, I could not help but wonder why I was not one of those children roller-skating outside my window. I, too, wanted to feel the breeze rushing against my curls.
Today, I am a free flowing river-ambitious and relentless. The rocks situated throughout my course have no power to hinder the flow of my river. I now see how I was the "fortunate" one as I have been able to use my experience as an advantage to motivate and encourage myself to lead a better lifestyle. Coming from overdue bills, coming from a "different" world, coming from a lost childhood, I have come to recognize that determination and perseverance are the driving forces of my river. I have been guided by the principle that an education is a life jacket that can never be strapped off of an individual. From waterfalls, to traps by quicksand, to the ocean water on my wounds, I have been directed from the different tributaries to the formation of my whitewater river. I aspire to one day be able to use my experience to encourage others undergoing similar adversity to drift toward their own rivers.
Undergoing Family Adversities
I will never forget the cold December day when I came home to find my mother frantically packing our belongings. My father, who had emigrated from Armenia to America three years earlier, had made the long-awaited call to inform my mother that our family would soon reunite in America. Yet, I did not know whether this was good or bad news. Of course, I wanted to see my father, but at the age of nine, moving, especially to a foreign country, was a frightening idea.
My father's call marked the emergence of tributaries that have combined to make me the person I am today. These tributaries do not merely consist of rivers but are a collection of different bodies of water.
In United States, life fell short of the impeccable world that my parents had promised it to be. I became trapped in a swamp- forcing me to only see the glumness in life. My father became so burdened with putting food on our table and keeping a roof over our heads that I barely saw him. My mother's health confined her to the bed, spilling her housekeeping chores onto my plate. The dictionary, that now has yellow faded pages, came to be my best friend as I translated countless documents for my parents into Armenian. It became my duty to ensure my younger sister correctly completed her assignments, did her chores and was well-behaved, when I was merely a year older than her. The rejection felt from society was swimming in an ocean with open wounds as the salt accentuated the adversity of being an immigrant. Going to school was walking into a lake-first, repelled by the tiny rocks poking the soles of my feet, but then feeling a rush of relaxation and a sense of accomplishment once I had walked over them.
But my parents claimed that I was the fortunate one. How? As a fourth grader, I couldn't understand. I felt like both, a mother and a child-I was learning in school, exploring the world, discovering life and teaching it to my sister concurrently, when I was expecting to be taught. At times, I could not help but wonder why I was not one of those children roller-skating outside my window. I, too, wanted to feel the breeze rushing against my curls.
Today, I am a free flowing river-ambitious and relentless. The rocks situated throughout my course have no power to hinder the flow of my river. I now see how I was the "fortunate" one as I have been able to use my experience as an advantage to motivate and encourage myself to lead a better lifestyle. Coming from overdue bills, coming from a "different" world, coming from a lost childhood, I have come to recognize that determination and perseverance are the driving forces of my river. I have been guided by the principle that an education is a life jacket that can never be strapped off of an individual. From waterfalls, to traps by quicksand, to the ocean water on my wounds, I have been directed from the different tributaries to the formation of my whitewater river. I aspire to one day be able to use my experience to encourage others undergoing similar adversity to drift toward their own rivers.
