Assignment 1 Draft
DeGrassi
Composition 1
September 16, 2021
A Place Where I Belong
Throughout my life I have almost always felt like I was more than one person, having these different personas that I would let different people see. It started when I was young, my friends would see one side of me, my family another, and then there is what’s actually going on inside my head. It always made me feel as though I never really belonged anywhere. My friends would describe me as someone who is easy-going and sarcastic. To my family I am stubborn and opinionated. I would describe myself as open-minded, understanding, and stubborn. Being around these different people I talk and act significantly differently. I think I do this to try and protect myself from feeling the judgement of others, which entails me acting how I think those particular people would want me to behave.
Hearing the sound of a ball being kicked I look up and see the crowd of my teammates waiting their turn to be next in the drill at practice. Everyone’s faces are rosey, you can see all of their breaths when they breathe out into the early morning. Some of my friends and I are standing around talking and joking around, when then Mandy adds something into the conversation. I look at her almost in shock at what she said, then I hear the laughing of my friends around me. My eyebrows knit together, as I finally process what just happened. My friend just said a derogatory phrase, and my teammates laughed; I’m so confused I thought. Why would they laugh? Why did she think it was okay to say that? I do nothing though, I don’t say a word and just walk away. For the rest of the practice my mind is just on what was said, and how
I didn’t confront my teammate about it. You see my brother has said almost the exact same thing, except the minute those words came out of his mouth I told him off, explaining why he can’t say that and how hurtful that could be to others. Here though I did nothing, because to my friends nothing ever bothers me, I hate confrontation, and they would say I am probably the most easy going person you will ever meet. I felt like I had a role to play, and I couldn’t stray from who I was supposed to be.
For myself growing up with the constant changes in my personality between person to person, the feeling of not truely belonging anywhere was always in the back of my mind. It took a toll on me for a long time, feeling as though no one really knows who I am. I struggled to find a sense of purpose in life, and tried to find a place I felt like I belonged. To be honest, with the consent feeling of almost being more than one person, I didn’t necessarily know who I truly was as a person.
Hiding. That is what I do, I keep my head in between the pages of paper, my mind in a different world. I go on adventures and live hundreds of different lives using approximately 200 to 400 pieces of paper to create alternate realities for myself. Most parents try to encourage their children to read, doing whatever they can to just have them read lines on paper. Not my parents though. As my parents always say, I use reading as an escape, a way to isolate myself from the world; which to them is apparently a bad thing. I have always found comfort in books, these stories that are being told, all the triumphs and hardships. Some can be described as magical, having been known to feel like home to certain people. Other stories can show misfortune and suffering. There are so many different walks of life on these pieces of paper, people can always find someone who they can relate to.
Reading makes me feel like it doesn’t matter what my personality is, who I am supposed to be that day, because no matter what there will be something in that story that I can connect to. It has become my outlet to not worry and stress about how I think I’m supposed to act and just let myself focus on something else, someone else’s struggles and worries, their achievements and conquests. It may be used as an escape from the real world but to me it feels like home.
What I don’t think I ever expected when I picked up a book to read recrationaly for the first time was that I would find a community, a place where I felt I belonged. Where there were other people like myself who I could relate to and they weren’t just fictional characters, but they were real people. Others who also faced the same struggles I face and use reading as their outlet as well. Although in a way my parents were right with the fact that I use reading to isolate myself from the world, what they didn’t realize is it would connect me with millions of other people .