Advanced Essay #1: Lost and Found

My goal for this essay was to connect both of my scenes in a way that would paint a clear picture to the person reading it. I wanted to use just enough detail to describe my main idea, which was memories. The thing I did well was being descriptive. I made sure I described everything that could be described, and left no detail unsaid. I feel as though I could of used more advanced words instead of the basic ones I used (ex. bad, good, boring, etc.).

It’s hard to understand oneself and who they are. In society today, you are expected to be resilient, selfless, “perfect”. How can someone know their own identity if they only see the imperfect parts of themselves that society forces them to correct?

All this wraps up into one big question, how can you discover your real self? This is something I like to call, ‘Lost and Found’. When you’re a child, you don’t give a care in the world about what people think of you, because it’s likely that no one cares who you really are, they like you for you, but little did you know that everything you did from birth until now, is what made you into the person you want to be.

It all begins with memories. Memories you reminisce about the most, are the memories that inspire you, memories so good that it would hurt to forget them. You remember specific things because it reminds you of who you were.

I’m in high school, yet I have a detailed recollection of something that happened to me when I was 4.

My brother and I would always wake up at the same time every Sunday, and run to my parents room, filled with yellow bright light and warm air. We would jump on their tattered bed and my dad would reach into his vintage nightstand and pull out a small box covered in words I couldn’t read or understand at a young age.

“Burro!” we would all yell in synchronization, and we would circle up on top of the bed, and begin our weekly card game of ‘Donkey’, or ‘Burro’ in Spanish.

I remember that moment, not only because it frequently occurred, but because it reminds me of the fun I used to have as a kid. There wasn’t a single moment as a child where I wasn’t doing something entertaining, something where I would laugh and make other people laugh with mel. I grew up, and everything changed. My laughter and energy became dull. My stories became tedious and worn out, so I stopped telling them, and the untold stories got lost amongst my teenager thoughts. I was different, I became quiet and independent. I had lost myself and had no intention to search for what had vanished.

Years later I made a bold decision to start running, and little did I know that I would have a great appreciation for it.

I had started my first race, and I was running so slow, that I might as well have been walking. Men with rainbow tutus ran passed me, children with legs as long as my arms ran passed me. Mile 4 and I wasn’t getting any faster. Mile 6, I’m almost there. There were big houses next to me with people screaming out the window, “You can do it!” I know they weren’t specifically talking to me, but it was those words, those people who decided they’d cheer on sweaty stinky strangers just because they wanted to, that simple act of kindness is what pushed me the last 4 miles.

Those people didn’t even know who I was, and they smiled at me and patted me on the back. It was at that moment that I realized, who was I fooling? I didn’t want to look back at my adolescence and regret everything I had done or didn’t do. I had lost myself for years, but one single moment, one single gesture from a stranger, pushed me to get out of a dark and lonely pit I had put myself in years ago. I didn’t care how the world saw me, I cared about how I saw myself. Some people may think memories are useless and a waste of time, but I think, memories are what makes each and every person unique in their own beautiful way. It’s horrible losing something so important to who you are, and one should only be grateful that they were able to find it, because some people never do. It’s easier to lose something, what’s complicated, is finding it, and I was lucky enough to find it.