Part One

Notes:

• A place I felt heard is not actually a place, but a person. A place I felt heard is anytime I'm with my best friend. 

• A place I felt spoken to would be at soccer practice by my coach. This was during the pandemic so games weren't allowed and practices were socially distanced. I also didn't want to play college soccer so I was really struggling to find the motivation to keep playing the sport since there wasn't anything for me to look forward to. I have played my whole life so my coach was really trying to show me that it's worth it to finish the season.

• A place where I feel it's complicated would be a situation with my parents and my girlfriend. They both expect me to be with them 24/7 so it's exhausting.

• Childhood question: "Are we there yet?" 

• Close to Death: I was seven and had to go to the hospital because I was continuously throwing up and had excruciating pain in my left side. As a child I was like "Yep, I'm done for."

• Scar Moment: I was smelling grass. I was touching a tree branch. I was seeing the sky. I was hearing my brother get worried. Idk what I was tasting. 

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My small group comments:

• "I like how these stories can be relatable for most people, makes them very interesting as a reader."

• "Maybe use another word instead of "something is up" just to make it sound more put together. Like something was different/ something was wrong/ etc."

• "Incorporate more imagery."

• "Interesting part: I like how you have recognized that it is the same question, just worded differently."

1. Broken Arm

"Ow" was my first thought as I was looking up at the sky, capturing small glimpses of the sun as it would peak through the swaying leaves. My body hurt in multiple places. I had lost grip of the rough tree branch and landed on my back. I could feel the cold grass touching my skin yet I couldn't feel my right arm. I knew something was wrong when my brother started frantically apologizing saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, don't tell mom." My brother had been taunting me that I couldn't climb the big tree so I obviously had to prove him wrong. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far, but did I climb that tree? Yes, I certainly did.

 

2. Childhood Question

"Are we there yet?" I have been known in my family for asking this question. Ten years later and my dad will still mimic me anytime we are on a long car ride together. I would never get an answer that I actually liked to hear so now I ask that question in a different form. It's now, "What time will we be there?" or "How many minutes until we're there?" This way I get a direct answer to my question and it appeases the impatience in me. I like to know things. In almost every situation, I need to know the details, or I won't sit still. I probably obtained this quality from playing soccer. Soccer taught me to always be prepared and if I didn't know the details, I wouldn't succeed in the way that I wanted to. 

 

4. A place where I feel heard.

I have come to a realization that my mom will always be my best friend. She is the place where I will always feel heard. Unfortunately, I haven't been the best daughter for the last couple of years. Although a lot of teenagers go through that anti-parent phase, mine seemed to drag out longer than I had realized. I think I lost my "mom" best friend sometime during high school and didn't get her back until the end of January in 2022. Part of it was because I became quieter at home and didn't talk to her about myself like I had used to.

 

5. First Crush

My first crush was Ashton Reno Grenier. In third grade, he was my main man. At the time, he wanted me to confess my feelings for him. But as a little third-grader, I didn't even know what I liked. Flash forward four years and I ended up still liking him. I'm not sure if he knew it or not but I really wanted him to like me back. I'd even sing songs for this mediocre boy. Imagine a little blonde girl singing a song from her favorite TV show Victorious during recess to a boy with shaggy hair that probably just wanted to go back to shooting hoops. Plot twist, I don't even like guys now anyway so this story is very amusing for me in more ways than one. 

 

6. Close Communities

My dorm room houses two of my communities. One being physical humans and the other being virtual humans. My physical community is almost anyone that enters my dorm room. But especially my roommate Marie. She is my best friend and I couldn't have asked for a more perfect match. We are so different yet also completely the same. Even our birth moons align lol. She's a Libra and I'm a Pisces so it just works. I consider her to be the person I'm closest to in my Sherley community. She knows almost everything about me and accepts me for who I am which makes TCU feel more like home. Don't get me wrong, she still agitates me when she wakes me up at 4 am. But I definitely agitate her too like when I play my tik toks out loud in the room. I also have my virtual Sacramento community because I facetime my hometown friends and family often. They also accept me for who I am and love me for me. I am lucky to be able to have both communities at a close grasp even if one is technically further away than the other. 

 

7. Childhood Neighborhood Story

I was a little, blonde, annoying, five-year-old that always wanted to do things that my brother was doing. Unfortunately, he had three years on me and usually got the best of me. We were in the middle of the wide, windy street at the front of my house. My brother and I were riding our bikes and my mom was taking pictures per usual. The next thing I knew, was that I was lying on my back, helmet covering my eyes, bike on top of me, and I could hear my mother panicking. My brother had run me over. And my mom had the pictures to tell the story. 

From Mat:

• Pay attention to who your audience is for. 

• Use rituals, relationships, and restrictions to drive your writing

• My rituals: I make my bed every morning

• My relationships: I talk to my bestie Mar every day and my other roomie Emma 

• My restrictions: I'm stuck on campus with no car= no escape