7) My Personal Narrative

We all do things in our life that we regret, whether it be the big mistakes, or the small opportunities we miss out on. Every person can pick a moment in time that they are not proud of themselves or their actions, and it is times like these when we can hopefully choose to learn a lesson from these situations. And that brings me to my story dating way back to the year two thousand and one. Back to the days when my personality didn't exactly match my sweet, innocent, kindergarten face.

I had been running on the playground ALL day. I ran from the swings to the low hanging monkey bars, back to the swings. Not having a single destination in my head and no real reason to run around other than the fact that every other five year old was doing it so why shouldn't I? My cheeks began to burn and I can only imagine my face has flushed to the shade of a ripened tomato.  But I don't care about any of that. The only thing I can think of is stay away from those booger infested boys. That's where there cooties come from, boy boogers, because Megan told me that the first day of school when we were hiding behind the kindergarten playground tree. And who were we hiding from? Let me rephrase that. What were we hiding from? Boys.

Everything about them was yucky. Not like my brothers back home. No way. My four brothers were gross, don't get me wrong, but all they did was pick on me. These kindergarten boys were EVEN more gross, not because they'd pick their cootie boogies, but because they were mean to us and they wanted to kiss us! Recess was no longer a time to play. This playground has become our battlefield and it is do or die. When that clock struck 11:15, it was go time: Chase or be chased. I was running along side my friend Megan as we sought for refuge, and we finally found it underneath the kindergarten tree that we had conspired behind the previous day. They are sure to never look here. Without any warning, Derek whipped around the side of the tree with his arms high up in the air, green paste dripping down from his nose to his lip. Now that's cooties if I ever saw them. Megan and my scream probably stretched to a 20 mile radius. But it was instinct.

We had been approached by the cootie monster himself and began bolting the opposite direction as fast as our nubs of legs would take us. There was no looking back at top speeds like this. But I had to. What if he’s right behind me? So I did, I turned my attention to what was chasing after me and in that exact instant i collided with something that felt as hard as a brick wall. It laid me flat on my back in point two seconds. OUCH. . . I must have hit my head on a pole or something. The pain was shooting throughout my head, but my eye felt the after shock of it all. I pressed my hand over my eye and looked up at the object that halted my progression. Even though my brain may have been impaired, there was no doubt in my mind who this culprit was. Kylie Breakbil. As if I didn't already hate her enough. She was the talk around the play ground. Her name was whispered during sleeping time as well. “Did you heard Kylie kissed a boy in the sandbox”  “Kylie talked back to the teacher” and “Kylie cheated at foursquare”. Oh man this girl made my blood boil. As she stood up with the nastiest look on her face she spit the words “Watch where you're going!” If only she knew how ugly her personality was.

It was a easy loathing. I didn't even have to try, it just came naturally. I just let her walk away without a single word to defend myself. Gosh dangit McKaela. Part of me wished that she wouldn't walk away from that collision without a bruise of some kind. My mind was no longer lingering on the fact that there was a boy chasing me and by the looks of things he wasn't interested in me either, instead he picked up his running in the direction of thee Kylie Breakbil. I mean thank goodness for that but that didn't make me hate her any less. One day i thought to myself, one day ill say something to her. I began walking to the drinking fountain, because after a crash and burn like that i needed refreshing gulp of water. I kicked the loose gravel as i meandered forward. As i watched the gravel pebbles bounce off each other like a game of pinball and looked up as soon as the recess bell rang. Danggit. Every good kindergartner knew that you have to be seated on the benches so that our teacher could come pick us up and take us back to the classroom in our orderly lines. My throat was burning and my stomach empty, nothing was more important than this drink of water, and nobody was gonna stop me. I quickly made it to the fountain and began to drink. A sense of relief came over me and the thirst was quenched. I heard a voice nagging at me from behind.

“One, two, three that's all you need, and don't you know you aren't suppose to be over here after the bell rings?!?” Kylie Breakbil, uggg. As if her presents wasn't enough she started to scream, “YARD-DUTY!”

“Fine! I'll go sit down,” I began to walk to my designated seat when in the corner of my eye I saw Kylie drinking water after the bell had rung like she told me not to! I was furious and now was my time to show her who’s really boss around here. I turned my little fanny around and trudged right back to the drinking fountain shoulders hunched and my little hands in fists. What would I say? I want to punch her, but I don't know if i have the courage for that sort of thing. Maybe I'll tell her shes mean. Wait no, my brothers laugh at me when I say those kind of “childish” things to them. Well here it goes. I didn't the first thing that can to mind and i cupped my hand under the water she was drinking and splashed it in her face. Not my initial reaction, but good enough. I think I got my point across and so i turned around to once again find my seat. Then in the distance I heard a cry. Wait was she really crying? But it was only water. Immediately two yard-duties were surrounding her, comforting her and questioning what happened. I didn't hear any words, but i definitely saw her point her bony little finger in my direction. Shoot. I'm in trouble. I pretended to not see what happened, hopefully try to disappear into the crowd of other kindergartners as they walked back to class with their teachers when out of no where a yard duty snatched me right out of my line. 

She began writing on a notepad and gave me a lecture that its not nice to fling water in other peoples face and that I was gonna be sitting on the bench for five minutes tomorrow during recess. Five minutes?! That's practically a lifetime! That was it… I never wanted to get a bench slip again in my life. Nothing was worth this misery. From that day on I swore to myself that id never get a bench slip again. No matter what, id avoid getting a bench slip at all cost.

Even though a bench slip may seem like a small consequence, it taught me a huge lesson in my life. I was so scarred from this experience, that it taught me to think before I act, instead of functioning on bad instinct. From this point on i realized that it is better for me to take a step back and learn how to think through situations instead of taking out my anger on others. I learned to not get offended easily and to not have others indicate my feelings. My life has been so much more enjoyable because I have learned that i am in control of my own feelings and actions, and that I personally benefit from avoiding confrontation.