Fighting for my thoughts

My literacy experience begins when I reset my life. It all started when I was 12. I was going through a very rough transitioning period of my life. My family was being broken up right under my semi perfect life. Semi perfect, meaning I thought my life was going smoothly and everything was always right. That all I had done when growing up was the right thing I had to do. Well, I was wrong. My perfect little world just got a lot bigger and a lot more difficult to stay on task when it came to the important things. What was happening within the four walls of my house was quite political. My family was fighting over what I should do with my life, when all I really wanted to do was read. Cut long story to short two years pass by and I am eventually going into freshman year of high school. All threw the two years I had lost very valuable people in my lifetime. My mother and my brother mostly. The reason being is because they wanted a better life for themselves, leaving me to try and escape the real world and try to go back to my readings. The one thing I enjoyed doing before my past life would die.

I learned to love reading back in elementary school. Elementary school was a sort of breeze for me. I didn’t know it then but I do now, that the reason that it was such an easy thing to do for me was because my legal guardian put me into a helper program to make sure that i could advance into the next level. I wasn’t the brightest student but i sure put in a lot of effort. One of my strongest memories I had was in my english class in fourth grade with Mrs. Jarzinkawitz, I do not remember exactly how to spell her name, and periodically she would give us spelling bee quizzes which involved us sounding out the consonants in words. In my helping classes it wasn’t just for english but also mathematics. For me I had the same teacher; Her name was Mrs. Cyr, who I knew both personally and academically. She was my neighbour. With Mrs. J’s work and Mrs. Cyr’s I could get a lot of my work done in a shorter amount of time than other kids. In Mrs. J’s classroom she would help my spelling and annunciation ability by having us sound out every syllable. I remember the word “together” being one of them. Which she made easier for us to remember in class as To – get – her. Which I will admit, at the age of eighteen I still use when spelling.

I remember when I went to middle school that I was the new kid from a completely different town. So knowing people was not an option and talking to people about what was happening at home wasn’t going to happen. I went to a new school “to broaden my education to make myself better in school” my legal guardian kept telling me. The first day of school I knew I was alone, I didn’t know the school at all and didn’t know how to get anywhere so I spent my first day of middle school in the principal’s office with her reviewing the school’s policies and the map of the school. At that point my only friend was the principle and in a new school there is no other way to feel outnumbered than that. So to feel like I had importance in the new school I would use the library to escape reality. I would go there and read these sci-fi novels to completely transport to another world without leaving this one.

When the ending of middle school came I was less socially awkward and also felt like I was one of the crowd. I had made friends, and was actually feeling confident with most things. My mind wasn’t concentrating on what was happening at home and actually made me look forward to go to school. So, I went to high school having a full mind of adventures that I got from my books. When I was going into high school things at home kept getting worse and I was concentrating less on school work and finally opening my eyes to what was happening in my world. Again going into a new school, I knew nothing about where to go, but I had friends to show me from the higher grades so I finally had friends to help me. When I finally reached my high school level of english class I realised all of the preparation that my previous teachers have done for me would pay off finally. In high school english you are mandated to take the classes the school tells you to take. The reason being is that they wanted us to expand your mind set from set to creative. They take what you have already learned and push your limits to reach your full potential. I again, thought my world was perfect, or less than perfect and it was going back to normality. Little did I know I was going to have to restart my whole life later that year.

Everything in that year was going flawlessly in school, then My mother and brother finally left. And I was alone at my legal guardians house with just her and myself. They had left me behind to start a new. My mother wanted me to go with her, but I didn’t. She had put me through enough  misery of fighting for years and didn’t want what was best for me. All of the fighting caught up with me on an emotional level and I had to fight with my own self to get back to how I thought I should be. Escaping to reading wasn’t helping me. I was entirely alone with my thoughts and my writings. I started writing down all of my thoughts when My legal guardian had sent me to a therapist “to help with my depression”. Oh, how it made it worse. I had gotten worse and worse as my freshman year progressed. I was never doing my homework, didn’t pay attention in class, and wasn’t reading as much as I should have. I managed to make it past freshman year by a strand of hair. Then Summer came and My mother brought my home state into my life. She didn’t like how I told her no to starting my life over with her so she brought the law into my life. She wanted to file for legal custody over me. Which she did, she had a trial almost set into motion until My lawyer came and asked me what I really wanted because My mother was winning the case of her taking me back. I told her to give me two days and I will give her my response. In those two days I walked from my house to the library and read. Read the law’s that had to do with child negletingment, child endangerment, and child entitlement. With reading those I also found out it was finally my choice to be heard in the court. In the eyes of the court at the age of 14 you are considered liable to make your own decisions, and you really do have a say. So that May I went to the courthouse and told my lawyer that I do not want to be with the one who has caused me my pain. And the judge had ruled in my favor. After that day I went home with my legal guardian and sat in my room in complete darkness and opened my mind. I thought about all that has happened. And re set my life.

I went into my sophomore year with a strong mind and my head up high. I knew I could handle all of the years to come with no problems. I went back to reading and started trying in school again. It was admittedly hard but I knew I could do it. My years went on normally after that and I was willing to do what the school has trained us to do which was to expand your mind set from set to creative. My junior year is when that strength to push myself came into play. It was more towards the end of the year and Mr. Woodman, my english teacher, told us as a class we were going to do a project on poetry. When I was instructed to do a poetry project on Anne sexton’s 45 Mercy street I had no idea I was going to fall in love with her work. It had all of the components I loved. It had gothic writing style, a story behind it, and a twisted theme. He pushed my limits in making this poem turn into a wonderfully presented project that included all of the major points and her point she was putting across. The point she put across was that yes there is misery in the world. Before I left that school as a senior he handed me a gift, It was a selective poems book of all Anne sexton material. Which I still have and still read.

None of my writing experiences would have been possible without the help from english teachers over all twelve of my years. And now that I am in college, away from all of my “family issues” I can say that I am ready to tackle the workload of writing essays in a properly timed manner and do them on time so that my past teachers work has not been for nothing. All of them have taught me to be the better writer that I am now. From elementary school to now college I have learned that no matter what you can do, it can be done better.