The Best Personal Essay I've Ever Written

The inspiration for my personal essay is from the book The Things They Carried. In the beginning of the book, one of the characters, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters, which reminded me of a personal experience. It also reminds me of how the world sees love as a thing that two people should share. Now, I have a better understanding of what love really is and what it entails.

I will never forget the time I thought I was in love. It was two summers ago.

I thought that I was in love with a girl named Eleonora Guzman. Her real name was Eleonora but everyone she knew called her Ellie. We graduated from our middle school, A B Day, together. We knew each other since the fifth grade,  what would be eight years now . Ellie and I were in an on and off relationship since the 7th grade, going up to the 9th. It wasn’t like we were in a relationship, then broke up and got back in a relationship a week later. What happened was we were together in the 7th grade and broke up a few months later. We got back together in the 9th grade and broke up a couple months later.

In my 9th grade summer she was in a relationship with one of my best friends, Dontae. At first, I was cool with it, but out of nowhere I caught feelings for her again.

Well, not exactly, “out of nowhere”.

Eleonora and I had a conversation one night, and  she said something that really made me feel some type of way. We said some things that weren’t appropriate. We said things that I knew Dontae would not like. A few nights after Ellie and I had the conversation, Dontae saw the messages and he found out that we were talking and he saw what we were talking about. Dontae and I stopped talking to each other after he found out.

Everyday Ellie and I would write each other letters. We wrote letters because her mom was very strict and she didn’t let her outside, and she wouldn’t let Ellie use her phone because she knew that Ellie would use it to talk to me or Dontae. I would get her the letters by dropping them off to her apartment window every morning after dropping off my younger brothers at summer camp.

In the letters Ellie wrote to me, she would say how she thinks I’m a great guy, but she loves Dontae, and she doens’t want to leave him. In my opinion, when we were together, I treated her better than Dontae did, so I didn’t understand why she would want to stay with him if I treated her better. But I cherished those letters and read them as if she would leave him and stay with me forever.

One day, I wrote her  a letter asking her to come to bible study at church. It would have been one of our only chances to see each other, and she took that chance.

Somehow, Dontae found out that Ellie went to church and he showed up with one of me and Dontae’s friends, Jahsil. Jahsil came inside and told Eleonora “Dontae is outside and  he’s really mad. He said coem outside.”  I stood up to see Dontae, and Ellie stood up and pushed me

down telling me to stay.

Ellie stepped outside and I didn’t hear anything but the sound of her and Dontae’s voices yelling at each other. She came back in and said nothing, and we didn’t say a word to each other for the rest of the night.

A few days later, I was playing kickball with some friends and Dontae walked up to me. As he was walking up, his demeanor looked as if he was going to hit me. There were two kids with him. One of them was Jahsil,  and the other one was a kid I didn’t know.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Ellie texted you the things she did?” He asked me

“I didn’t know how to tell you, I wasn’t thinking.” I told him.

“You are supposed to be my brother. You are supposed to be like family. I trusted you and you did me dirty. You’re a crazy bull .” He said as he walked away shaking his head.

“You should have hit em’. Knock him right out.” One kid whispered to Dontae.

Yea, you should have hit em” “another kid agreed.

I didn’t even finish playing dodgeball. I went right home after that.

That night I sat in my room and I listened to music. I listened to music for hours. From Tupac to Kendrick Lamar,  Nas to J. Cole, and Childish Gambino to Chance the Rapper.

After 5 hours, I stopped listening to music, and I started to think.

I thought for hours.

I realized a few things. One thing I realized was that I couldn’t let this whole situation ruin me and Dontae’s friendship. We’ve been best friends since kindergarten, and we never did each other wrong.

Another thing I realized was that I didn’t really love Ellie. I thought I did. I didn’t really love her, I just loved the good times we had. She would have good moments, but she wasn’t a good person.

A few days later, I decided to go to Dontae’s house to talk to him about everything. So after I dropped off my younger brothers at summer camp, I walked to Dontae’s house.

I walked up to his door and rung the doorbell. I could hear his mom’s footsteps come down the stairs as she came down to get the door

“Who is it?” She asked. as she walked up to the door

“Vaughn” I answered.

She opened the door and welcomed me in.

“Dontae! Vaughn is down here to see you!” She yelled.

“He is in the shower. He will be out in a minute.” His mom said.

“Vaughn, I haven’t seen you in a minute. How have things been?” She asked.

“Things have been a bit rocky between Dontae and I.” I replied.

“What happened?” She asked.

I explained to her everything that happened with me, Ellie, and Dontae. Dontae came downstairs by the time I finished explaining everything to her.

“What’s up.” He said as he gave me a handshake.

“I came to talk to you about everything. First off, I  sincerely apologize on my part of everything that happened. I should have told you that she sent me those messages. I admit that I was wrong.” I told Dontae.

After that we talked for almost an hour about where it started, and the things we should’ve did, and Dontae apologized for how he acted.  

At the end of the whole discussion Dontae and I agreed to never let a girl make us mad like we did. We agreed to never let a girl get in between our friendship again.

It took us about a week or two to get back on good terms. Dontae and I did a couple things before we became really cool.  We played videogames and we played  basketball  for long periods of time and we had more one-on-one conversations before we really got things like they used to be.

Morally, I learned that I didn’t love Ellie. More than that, I learned she didn’t love me. This taught me that you can love someone, or think you love them, and they don’t love you back. A poet from Mumbai named Sanober Khan said herself, “the saddest thing is to be a minute to someone, when you’ve made them your eternity”, and to Ellie, I was a minute instead of an eternity.