Personal Whirlwind

I found the following among a few essays that were written for an English 1010 course I took my first semester in college...back a looong time ago... it was kind of entertaining to go back and read what I wrote for the class...and I felt like I would share here even if at times I felt like some of it was a bit personal. I find that I tend to be a bit narcissistic when it comes to my writing. If I am writing about myself or something I have experienced I find that I have an easy time finding my voice and what I would like to say. Try it you may find that you are the same way.

***For the privacy of my victims - er subjects I have changed their names***

Personal Whirlwind

As a child my family moved a lot-not for any valid reason, like a job, or military service-we moved just because we could. By the time I turned eleven-years-old, I had moved ten times. I always felt like I couldn't settle in any one place because once I did, we would move again. I made my parents promise we wouldn't move after the eleventh time, until we had been in one place for at least five years. They promised, and I began to slowly assimilate myself into society. I made friends, but kept my distance. I had friends who tried to get closer to me, but I tended to push them away, to save them and myself from hurt. Through junior high I continued the same path, and was ready to move on to high school. When it came time to register for high school, I had to decide between the two high schools that our junior high split into, they both had their pluses, but one was where all of my friends were going. The choice should have been simple, go with your friends, you dummy. Something deep down refused to go, my inner voice kept screaming at me, "Don't go to that school, go to this one, it will mean new friends, better friends, and some great adventure I promise." I thought about it, the voice could be right, but what about all of the friends that I already had, weren't they good enough? After arguing back and forth for a while, I gave in and listened to the voice.


When it came time for school to start, I had a lot of time where I could yell at the voice for what it had bamboozled me into, why had I been so stupid to listen? I went to the first school stomp, not because I wanted to, but because my mother threatened me with embarrassment and denial of privileges, like tv, personal space, books, late bedtime and the like, if I didn't go out and make some friends I would lose them all. So I went, I felt like such a loser, no one knew me and those who did already had their own friends. I was sitting down, working up the courage to go home and figure out a way around my mother, when thirty seconds from leaving, my life began to change.

I started to stand up and locked eyes with a girl who was walking in my direction. She had the biggest, toothiest smile; I don't think I have ever seen another like it. She didn't have the best teeth- they were crooked and definitely had never seen an orthodontist, but the smile was dynamic. I found myself drawn in by some mystical power that the smile carried with it. She kept walking toward me and before I knew it I was in the middle of the biggest bear hug of my life, I was caught off guard so my arms were down by my sides and I was trapped. If she didn't stop squeezing me so tight I was liable to be misshapen for the next month. "What the heck do you think you are doing?!" was all I could think. Then she released me from her death grip and held me at arms length. "Hi, I'm Allissa. Do I know you? ........Maybe we met in pre-mortality."

Wow, did I just hear her right? Pre-mortality?! You don't just walk up to a person and tell them that you think that you may have known each other in a different time or life. Okay so maybe she mistook me for someone else. Oh, she's looking at me, she must want a reply- quick-autopilot answer: " Um, hi my name is Necia, and I don't think I know you." Ah, that was good-give her a chance to fix her mistake.

"Well, I'm glad to see you again, how have you been since I last saw you, Nisha? That is how you say it right, kind of like Nilla wafers?"

Okay, so she still thinks we know each other, she has bad hearing and makes weird spelling connections. Maybe she's crazy, yeah, that must be it, she's crazy. So what do we do? Gotta think... if she really is crazy, then we should just play along until there's a chance to get away. Okay, that is it-just play along with her, then maybe she won't go wacko and try to kill you or something.

The rest of the night I followed Allissa around the dark and rotten-smelling boys’ gymnasium, being introduced to new people left and right. We had tons of fun getting to know each other, maybe mom was right after all-this dance thing wasn’t so bad, well, if you ignore the odd introduction. Besides, Allissa was a good source of entertainment, and had a nose for sniffing out cute guys. At the end of the dance, we all went our separate ways and I stayed up late into the night telling mom about all of my adventures.

The next week in school I met a girl named Gabrielle. When I introduced her to Allissa, it was like the clicking of puzzle pieces. The three of us were in a lot of the same classes and our friendship continued to grow as we talked to one another about our lives, experiences, and families. We eventually began referring to our trio as the "Three Musketeers." From then on we were inseparable and ever on the lookout for new people and new adventures to get ourselves into.

The next year we were all getting ready to go back to school, and were all excited for our Junior year of high school to be under way. We all decided that we were too cool for our parents to take us to register, so we planned that we would all go together. The day of registration came, and it started out with Allissa picking up all of the girls we hung out with to go to the high school for registration. We all went in and registered for school, then while we were waiting for everyone to meet back together, we got bored and put colored streaks in my hair with markers we found on a table. While we were standing there, one of the girls started talking about a boy that she met once when she was at EFY (a youth summer camp style program) the past week. We started to joke about how funny it would be for all of us to go and visit him, especially because he didn’t know any of us. We all decided that it would be really cool to do, so we went out to the car and everyone piled in and we were off.

I took shot gun and was in charge of telling Allissa if we were headed in the wrong direction. I told her to just get on the freeway and I would tell her which exits to take. She got on the highway headed in the wrong direction in the first place, after a few seconds I looked up and realized that instead of heading North, we were instead heading South. I had her get off at the next exit and told her to get back on. So she got off and back on and was still headed South. I hadn’t realized that when she said that I needed to keep her going the right direction she literally meant that. I told her to get off at the next exit and then proceeded to get her back on the highway going Northbound.

We were once again on our way, we drove up the road for what seemed like forever, the seat was melting into me and I could feel the heatwaves rising from my body in the heat of this summer day. We rolled down all of the windows and willingly accepted the fact that our hair would be a price to pay for any type of ventilation. Nearly two hours after leaving the high school parking lot, we finally saw the exit sign announcing that Brigham City was just ahead. We drove into the middle of the town and realized that we didn’t know what the address of the boy’s house was. So we pulled into the parking lot of the local grocery store, and found a phone book to call him and find out if he was even home. We called and to our relief he was home, he then proceeded to give us directions to his house.
We walked back out into the sweltering heat and drove over to his house. We pulled up to the house and were greeted by the smell of fresh flowers, the house had a well groomed flower garden that took up half of the space in front of the cottage like home. After remarking on the house and its immaculate garden, we rang the doorbell and were greeted by the young man we had come to see. We went into his house and talked with him only to find out that he didn’t remember our friend who suggested we all drive up to see him. She was upset, but we decided that we could still have fun while we were in Brigham City with or without him. We asked what he liked to do for fun, he scoffed and told us that there really wasn’t anything fun to do in Brigham except go bowling and besides the lanes were closed that day.

We were all fairly shocked that someone would think that there was nothing to do anywhere, because we found amusement wherever we went. We decided that we would find something fun to do and tell him all about it so that he would not be able to say that there was nothing fun to do in Brigham. We piled into the car and drove for a few minutes when someone mentioned their thirst and hunger. We decided on a picnic, we thought about what we would have and started collecting money. We knew that we needed to fill our gas tank before we started home, so we took out enough to fill the tank. We counted up the rest of the assets and found that we had one dollar each to acquire food.

We didn’t know what to do with such a small amount of funding, then we decided that we could go to the store and everyone could pick something to share for under a dollar. Everyone got their items and we regrouped and totaled up our cost and we had just enough money to pay for the food. We paid for the food and headed back to the house to have our picnic-we decided upon that spot because we all loved the flower garden so much. We sat down and began to have an "A-B-C" picnic, we ate our feast in alphabetical order and in the middle of it our host left for work. We finished eating and decided that we would write him a thank you note for allowing us to picnic on the front lawn. We could not find any paper and so we tore up the paper bag that we had used for a blanket and wrote him a note. We left the note on his front porch and headed for the gas station. We filled the tank, and were once again on the road back home. We got back to West Valley, and dropped everyone off at their homes. I had so much fun that I didn’t want to go home, but I had an appointment that I needed to keep so I did.

Later that night, I sat down to write about my day in my journal. It had been a long time since I had last written, so I knew that I needed to find a way to introduce my future readers to these best friends of mine. I didn’t know exactly where or how to start. I decided that the beginning would probably be best, especially the conspicuous meeting with Allissa at the dance. With that in mind, pen touched paper and I began to write about the girl who had done so much for me.

Later, I look back through my journal and come to the page when Allissa entered my life; I pause, reverent and reminiscent. As I read and watch the transformation of myself I can't help but cry, my tragedy beginning had turned out to be one of the best things to happen to me. I hadn't realized what an affect she had on my life; she had seen my ugly duckling self and helped to change me into a confident and adventuresome young woman. She had seen my potential and through her inspired friendship I had grown. I found myself, and have helped others to find themselves, thanks to that chance meeting at a high school stomp that seems so long ago.