Essay Collection

Map of the Past Essay

Grace Crilly

Growing up, everything seemed like it went so fast that I couldn't remember anything before the age of seven, except for one memory, when I started singing at the age of four. In my perspective, memories are milestones. On my map, I drew Kimball Hill Park to explain my memory about singing on the swings everyday at recess. Along with Kimball Hill Park, I drew in Carl Sandburg Junior High and Rolling Meadows High school. I choose my middle school and high school, because I wanted to discuss how the transition going to one school to another was a milestone for me. This essay's primarily focus is on memories created who I am today and how those memories feel like milestones.

The moments you know you're going to remember the rest of your life, that's how I feel when I started to sing. Singing for me has always been an escape, because of the fact I found my love for it just a year after my grandfather died. At Kimball Hill Park, every day at recess in the fifth and sixth grade I'd sing, "Someone Like You" by Adele. It always made me happy and I never understood why, but it was my way to not feel like I was alone. Even though the song is a breakup song it still shows and represents grief and self reflection after leaving a relationship. Now today, every lyric I write myself is about grief and self reflection because of my experience being bullied, abused and fat shamed. I learned in one way what it means to have those feelings about being in a romantic relationship and another about relationship with your parents. Not just singing was my best memory at that park, writing was also my favorite. I found my love for writing when I was nine years old. I'd bring my notebooks and pens outside with me so I could write, sitting on the green benches. Writing was something I automatically loved, that I didn't want to stop doing.  Thinking back as a kid from what I had thought and felt, transitioning to middle school was scary for me. I know I'd have to be more mature and responsible.

In the summer of leaving elementary school, I met my best friend. It felt like everything changed when we met. That I had a new perspective on everything because of her. Although, as best friends our struggle was going to two different schools. However, it did show me who I am as an individual and that I can handle anything on my own. My middle school experience was a lot like many others, very awkward. What I had done to make my middle school experience better was joining choir, swimming after school, and writing. I was always asked in elementary school, "Why aren't you in Choir? You should join Choir." I never wanted to do that in elementary school and I didn't know why. Just recently I realized why, it's because of the fact people would always ask me and tell me that. I don't want to be doing something just to make other people happy, I want to do it because I want to. In the seventh grade, I joined choir and I loved it that I did so again in the eighth grade. After Choir usually, I'd go to Olympic Pool in Arlington Heights for swim classes. I wound up not just doing that for myself though, since one of my friends was scared of being in the water and never really learned how to swim. So my coach and I helped her over her fear of water and learn how to swim even better. Doing that gave me more confidence in myself, that I'm not the same quiet and shy girl I've always been. I know that I do have a purpose, almost all my life I've wondered what's my purpose and I discovered by doing that is to help others and also myself. However, going into high school I lost helping my own self. Writing has always made me feel better about myself, but when I went into high school it felt like a whole new level for me.

I was able to make time to always write for myself in middle school, however in high school things got a lot more hectic. My choice was to be a three sport athlete. I did also continue to be in Choir. I originally was supposed to be in three sports, choir (as a class) and show choir. That would've been impossible for me, so I dropped show choir. Being in three sports along with choir, guitar, social group and having a job was crazy enough for me. Everyday felt like a drag to me doing the same thing everyday, that I couldn't focus on things like writing and myself. I wouldn't focus on myself, because I knew I had a million other things to do on my plate. It was exhausting, but it was worth it to me in the end because I received the Golden Mustang award. The Golden Mustang award is being in three sports all four years. The reason why it was worth it to me is because of the fact what personality type I am. I have a type A personality, who's ambitious, outgoing, anxious and sensitive. Even though it was exhausting, I didn't care I was going to get that award if anybody liked it or not including myself. There were several moments I wanted to quit, but I had thought of my grandfather Harry and Mamo (Mamo is an Irish, gaelic way of saying grandma).

My Mamo describes my personality as driven, that no one can get in my way no matter what. Mamo often observes that me and my grandfather are alike. Thinking of him, made me think that I didn't want to disappoint him by giving up. I knew better than to not give up on family and myself. Dybek writes, "I was about to give up when I saw his face magnified by the beveled panes of the lobby door. He opened the door and broke into the craggy grin I'd seen in class when he would read a poem aloud- first in Russian, as if chanting, and then translated into his hesitant, British-accented English" (Dybek 4) Dybek was ready to give up even though he was told to come over, but once he had seen his face again he automatically remembered the energy he'd bring to class when reading aloud, in a different language and in an accent. Dybek remembered a good memory, back when he taken his class. However, Babo moved to one country to another that he can't stay in one place which reminds him where he was welcomed felt like where he was vanished. Dybek expresses, "He'd lived in England and Canada and said he never knew where else was next, but sooner or later, staying in one place reminded him that when he belonged no longer existed" (Dybek 6).  Maps like the one I created and the one Dybeck created give us a nostalgic way to look back at the past.  Traveling around with your family creates memories and when you first travel on your own it's a milestone for yourself. It's an important moment in anybody's life when living on your own, which brings you into adulthood. One moment the only thing you remember is when you become a pre-teen and then you wind up looking back at that memory thinking, "Life was so much easier back then", although, life is never easy.

Works Cited
Dybek, Stuart. The Coast of Chicago. Vintage Contemporaries, 1990.