Adlowitz Personal Experience Essay

Gold Stream

Personal Experience 

It was a Saturday afternoon. I had been at the swimming pool all day. I was there with my mom, my stepsister, my aunt, and my cousin.  I rode home from the pool with my aunt and cousin. My mom and stepsister had left earlier. As we arrived at my house, I saw two cop cars. I could tell something strange was happening.  

As I nervously made my way into my house, I saw my mom talking to an officer. He was holding a clipboard and a writing utensil.  I felt refreshed from swimming yet I couldn’t help sweating anxiously. The officer was asking my mom questions. I wasn’t sure what happened because my mom looked so calm.  I walked into my living room and saw that a window was broken. I noticed two guys looking for fingerprints around the window. I looked around the room. It looked the same except that the floor behind our couch was covered in broken glass.

I remember telling a cop that this really shook me hard. “It’s a violation. That’s a perfectly normal feeling to have,” the cop said to me. I was nervous but I thought to myself, we have an alarm system, so hopefully the burglar or burglars hadn’t taken much. I hoped that none of my personal belongings were taken.

The officers recommended that we remain down stairs until they could search the 2^nd and 3^rd floors of our house. I wanted to go upstairs because I was anxious to let out my frustrations by playing some videogames. The officers didn’t find very much in their search. They reviewed the final police report with my mom and gave us a number to reach them at if we had any thing else to report stolen or if we had any additional questions or concerns. 

As they left, I took a deep breath to reassure myself that everything was going to be okay. I hugged my mom tightly and then went to pour myself something to drink. I walked up to the second floor to play some video games on my PS2. When I got upstairs, I looked down at my TV stand. To my horror my PS2 wasn’t in its normal spot. I realized it had been stolen.

            Losing my PS2 made the robbery feel a lot more real to me. It wasn’t all about the PS2; it was more the violation of having something taken from inside my house-of all the places on the earth, the place I should feel the safest.

             I may sound like I feel the world should revolve around me. But when something you loved is gone, all you want is to have it back in your possession. I felt so paranoid after the robbery. It was crazy how something can change your life just out of nowhere.  I didn’t ever want to leave my house. I found myself avoiding public transportation and walking places by myself. I slept with a baseball bat next to me every night.

            My parents were really worried about me. They put me in therapy for a few sessions. Therapy helped a little bit. It made me realize that it could’ve been a lot worse, and that people take risks everyday.

            The risks we take are vast. They can include driving in a car to get somewhere, or leaving your house unattended for the day. Anything can happen whenever and wherever. You can never predict the exact outcome of what is going to happen, but in life you need to be able to move on, regardless of what has been thrown at you.

            Due to the robbery, a lot of bad ended up turning into some good. I saved up some money and my mom helped me buy a PlayStation 3. I also started to take more precautions to prevent future incidents.

             I ended up learning a lot from it all. I learned more than anything else that taking risks is a large part of everyday life. When I think about them as risks, then I feel like I’m going crazy. The thought of the robbery haunted me worse than the actual robbery. I learned that I have a choice about letting things get to me. If I don’t worry about possible crimes, they don’t seem bother me at all. And this is true in many situations, not just the robbery.