Personal Narrative: Tommy Pickle

Rather than being gifted with parents who were capable of being around for all life’s hardships, I was given parents who were forced to work hours that did not allow for these moments. So while they were slaving away in factories to give their children the type of life they had not been so lucky to have, I decided that nobody knew what kind of person I wanted to be more than I did. So I would be the decider of what was acceptable for me to behave like and what should not.
Because as a young child I believed that I should be like Tommy Pickles with his fearless attitude and ability to conquer all life’s obstacles with gusteau, and be able to look past anything that might be considered a small defect in a person’s physical appearance and always look on the bright side of things just like my favorite guy with an ovate head Arnold did. So I did these things. I faced all the challenges life could throw at me with a smirk and a witty remark and tackled it head on. And if ever a child was spotted
alone during recess or lunch, I was there to ask them all about how their day was and to learn all about the things they enjoyed so I could race home and learn as much as I could about them so they would know someone genuinely wanted to become closer to them. But as the years went by, it became more and more difficult to keep up these acts in a world where they were not the everyday acts of most.
But the endless catalog of content became less helpful in a world where television became more about nonsense and less about giving kids a set of ideals.
So I began to imagine what the world should be like instead of the nightmare it actually was. It was meant to be a place where strangers were met with a smile, not a snarky comment on the way their hair was combed. A place where boys and girls could be interested in the things that made them smile not what was deemed appropriate for their gender, or where the solution to all of life’s problems could be some with some quick thinking and a montage or two. The reality of course being that this just was not the case and that in order to get over things, I had to understand that things were not as innocent as I had hoped they would be and that the hardest problems would end in tears. Kindness was seen as a trick to get me to lower my guard, and all victories were just a pause in the endless failures that were about to take
place.
All of these experiences and “revelations” were eventually combined to form what I have considered to be guidelines for a good person. No matter the case I do everything I can to see the best in people even if they have not earned my trust yet, and I try to always be there for the people who need me regardless of whether I have known them for ten years or ten minutes. Because when you grow up not having much contact with people who have real world experience, sometimes the best person to raise you is yourself.