Change: For The Worst

Essay by mwoods09College, UndergraduateB+, November 2008

download word file, 5 pages 3.0

“Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted” (Gallagher 1). Since the tenth grade I’ve learned to accept change even though it might not be the best thing. The word change has not been the finest word for me to hear. To me change means something that occurs that you have to deal with, good or bad. Me, I do not deal with change too good this is because of my big move.

Once upon time my life was perfect, I actually shined like a shiny new penny. My freshmen year of high school, I went an urban school but it fit me, an urban school, an urban life, just plain ol’ me. I was still the quiet, shy girl but the lifestyle fit me. I lived with my mother, I was a spoiled child, but we got along.

I had lots of friends we kicked it on the weekends. But my school made me comfortable and I felt at home there. People didn’t judge me because of my appearance. Well that’s until the big move happened.

“Melissa, I’m gettin’ married!” my mother said with stimulation in her voice. Me and my mothers relationship wasn’t all that good but it was better than most, she was someone I could count on, any time I needed her she was there, for advice or simply just support. August 23, 2005 was when I heard the worst news of my life. A lot went through my head: What school will I go to, what will happen to my old friends, will I find new friends, etc. Usually when people hear that someone’s getting married you try to be happy for them, but I wasn’t too happy. All I could think about was me. Those three words changed my life for the worst, “I’m getting married!”Before I heard the bad news, I had a fairly simple lifestyle. I was never a big people person, but I did have my friends and my associates. To think back now I loved my simple life, I never needed anything big. I never remember crying myself to sleep. This is because I stayed in my comfort zone. But when someone took me outside of my comfort zone it was hard for me to deal with.

June 2nd, 2006 is when my nightmare started, me and my mother moved to independence with what was about to be my new step-father, Tommy. Tommy has always been around, ever since I was a kid, but I never really got the chance to sit down and get to know him. But after the big move, I felt angry and saddened with not only the people around me but with myself. I didn’t want to sit down and get to know him any longer because I felt that I had no say so in what was about to change the rest of my life. It was summer when we moved, so most of the summer I kept to myself, stayed in the house, and tried keeping up with the few friends that I had, that I would probably never see again. Sometimes I cried, wishing the move was just a dream, but the dream just became a nightmare. Every chance I got to look at my photo albums or old yearbooks I did, it brought back memories that I could never regain. As the summer got closer and closer to an end, I started getting scared of what my new school would bring.

“I’ve never been in a situation so scary in my life,” I said to myself while sitting on the bus stop alone on the first day of school. My hair was done and I found the cutest outfit in my closest, trying to feel a little confident in myself but I couldn’t. What was the day going to bring? I stepped foot on the bus, I found the first seat available, and sat down in panic mode, my heart was racing. I looked around and I couldn’t find any other African American students. Right then I knew the next three years would be hard for me, coming from a ninety-five percent African American school. When the bus pulled up to the school, I went straight to class. All throughout the day no one talked to me and I was too scared to talk to anyone. At lunch I sat and ate by myself, I didn’t even bother sitting with people I didn’t know. I did see a couple African Americans, but when I went around them they acted fake, they made the face for African American student in the school and I didn’t think they made a very good one.

Why did no one talk to me? Did I seem like an outsider to everyone else, because I sure felt like an outsider to myself? In my life, it was always so hard for me to make friends because I was so quiet and shy, but never this hard. After a while I stopped wanting to make friends. There was no point anymore.

I found the solution. I realized why people didn’t talk to me or make friends with me. Not trying to judge any people, but the white people at my school never really had any interaction with African Americans and vice versa. “For the first time, I felt unequal, disadvantaged, and disable” (Toussaint 121). People didn’t talk to me because of the color of my skin, because I wasn’t their ideal color. When I tried to talk and make friends with people they acted like they didn’t hear me or they blew me off. This made me feel so sad, for a long time I was sick to my stomach, thinking how people could be this atrocious. I’ve never dealt with racism my whole life and now it was being thrown at me at once. Suddenly I felt what Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks felt when they dealt with racism. Not only did I deal with racism from students, I also dealt with it from teachers. It made me so mad that teachers, of all people stereotyped me. But I had to show them that I was not a waist of a desk in the classroom. I was not just another statistic or a bad one at least.

How to deal with it? I didn’t deal with it, I basically ran from it. I felt like I had no one to talk to about it to. Pretty soon I stopped caring about what people thought about me, I stayed away by: eating lunch by myself, doing group work by myself, and spend my free time alone. This became a lifestyle, my lifestyle.

Everyone deals with something similar to this problem. A lot of people don’t speak up or maybe just don’t think it’s a big problem. Everyone deals with change, whether it’s a parent getting married or moving to another state. Many teens deal with change, it can be big or small, a parent dying to losing a boyfriend to a best friend. Change is a lifestyle, you really don’t have to learn how to accept it but you do have to learn how to deal with it in any situation. To me change has been a not so good word, but to others change can be the best word ever heard. “Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted” (Gallagher 1).

Work CitedGallagher. “The Quotations Page: Change Quotes” [Online] 1 October 2008.

http://www.quotationspage/quotes/GallagherToussaint, Nicollette. “Hearing the Sweetest Song.” Reading Critically, Writing Well.

Fifth edition. Eds. Rise B. Alelrod and Charles R. Cooper. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s. 1999. 120-122