My Defining Moment

As a child, looking at the world, everything seemed big and scary. Naturally, most children would dive into the new world with fresh eyes and contentment, but I would always stay back. I would think things through and consider consequences before acting irrationally. My friends would always do things with spontaneity while I would get left behind sitting alone shrouded by my fear. As life gradually moved on, I grew to overcome my fears and not overanalyze situations with the help of a few moments in my life.

One event I remember with startling clarity was when I was seven. Like many children, my brother and cousins loved to ride roller coasters and enjoyed the thrill that accompanied it. However, I never relished the execrable feeling of my
On one trip to Great America, my cousins and brother ditched me to ride a ride called Psycho Mouse which had crazy turns, but most importantly, had drops. Feeling dejected, I sat next to my mom who also disliked roller coasters. “I guess it’s in my dreams” I bitterly thought. Seeing my crestfallen expression, my mom called my dad over. He hurriedly sprinted over thinking we were in danger, but when he saw we were just both sitting on the bench without a single scratch, he inquisitively asked what was wrong. My mom explained that I felt left out and a determined expression soon filled my dad’s face. He took my hands and dragged me until we stood in front of what looked like a snoopy mini roller coaster. At that moment, I couldn’t distinguish what kind of emotions I felt. My feelings of anger because he knew I was deathly afraid, embarrassment because I was the oldest kid there, and maybe even a twinge of hope (although I’d never admit it) jumbled up leaving me an anxious mess. My dad dragged me to the seats kicking and screaming while the attendant of the ride watched us trying (but failing) to hold back a smirk. The first few seconds weren’t bad...until we hit the first drop.
With all of the cases of people drowning , it was only logical and my younger self didn’t really understand the challenging concept of floating. I used to take these classes that had 6 levels to help you improve your swimming skills at UCSF. The levels were fairly easy to pass and my brother breezed through them, but me? I stayed at the bottom level as a guppy. It would’ve been easy to pass the levels, but the only problem was I refused to get into the water. After two classes which took ¼ of a year each, my mom grew frustratingly tired of my lack of improvement. At the time, I was 4, but I could never forget the traumatic experience. The night before the lesson, I went home and came back with a purple sparkly nail polish which I put in my swimming bag to show to my cousins, but that day at the swimming lesson, my mom had finally had enough. She snapped and dragged me into the girl’s bathroom. There, she threatened to throw away the purple sparkly nail polish. My 4-year-old brain couldn’t assimilate that a person would do something that cruel and terrible, so I called her bluff and refused to get into the water.Outraged, she forcefully hurled the nail polish until it shattered on the bottom of the trash