Personal Narrative- Happy to be Away from Home Essay -- Personal Narra

"For years I never spoke to anyone about it. Never mentioned a thing to my parents or teachers or my classmates"(Rodriguez 623). 1 shiver as I read it-the most powerful sentence I have ever come across. Scared, confused and resentful, I slam the book shut. Silence confronts me. Not a whisper, not a murmur-I hear nothing. I am alone. The donn room is too dark, the single lamp too dim. Anxious and frightened I flop onto the bed and look out at the night sky. Not a star is to be seen-Just infinite dark space. My pulse quickens. Suddenly the room is too hot-too small. I feel claustrophobic. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing it to go away. It won't. My palms become sweaty and I feel nauseous. I kick my legs in the air, angrily lashing out at the haunting memories. With every kick the anger builds up, until tears of hopelessness and frustration roll down my cheeks onto the pillow. I can't take it anymore, and I scream, "Aaaaahhhh!" It's only an essay I remind myself. But that is exactly the problem-it has made me confront feelings that I have tried to ignore and had kept hidden for a very long time. I close my eyes and the memories flood my head, threatening to haunt me. I am the "scholarship boy" to a certain limit (Rodriguez 622). 1 am an excellent student. Always successful, always confident. Needing to be the best. I study and read to succeed-to get a report card with nothing but A's. I don't study to learn. I am a good student and yet at the same time, a bad one. I read, ace an exam, and then forget about it, for my sole purpose is to succeed and get ahead. But this does not make me bookish- merely ambitious and overzealous for success. "Education is the only way for you to succeed. Take advantage of every opportunity you get," my... .... It makes me feel ungrateful that my parents love me and miss me so much, yet I cannot fully return that. It took Rodriguez a lifetime to come to terms with that. I wonder if I'll ever have the courage he had to took back. At this point I do feel like I have lost quite a bit of the cultural part of my childhood, but as yet I do not view it as a great loss. One thing is for sure; the essay forced me to confront my true feelings and has given me a way to express myself and a way to deal with issues I would have never otherwise faced. At this point I cannot say whether I will try and recover my lost culture. I just hope that university does not create an even greater barrier and distance between my family and me. Works Cited Rodriguez, Richard. "Achievement of Desire." Ways of Reading. Ed. Tony Perrietto and Joan E. Feinberg. Boston: Bantam Books, 1999. 620-639.