The Invisible Person: Personal Narrative

The Invisible Person It was a snowy Monday night during winter break of my eighth grade year: Christmas Eve. Everyone on my dad’s side was gathered including all the cousins, the grandparents, and the aunts and uncles. The six cousins, Michael, J.J., Mina, Hannah, my sister Stephanie, and I were all there. We were eating a buffet style dinner, and the younger generation was sitting on the floor, while the older generations were sitting at the table. Everyone was chatting, catching up on each others lives, and overall having a great time. That is, everyone but me. While everyone was talking amongst each other, I was sitting closest to the corner of the room. Being the youngest, I had no one to talk to. The older boys were talking about sports and college, and the older girls were talking about classes and people at Parkway North. I was not yet in high school and therefore not ready to talk about colleges, and I was not at all interested in sports. I had no one to talk to and nothing to talk about. I ate my dinner as slowly as possible, and finally after about thirty minutes, I was finished. I threw away my trash, and looked for my uncle’s dogs, Charlie and KimChee, because I did not have anything else to do. When I found them, they were in a room far from everyone else, and I realized how pitiful I was. If only I had realized then that the cure to my isolation was communication, I could have prevented the pain that was to come. I starting petting Charlie, but the extent of my upsetness grew exponentially, and in less than five minutes, I was silently crying. After about ten minutes of looking like a complete maniac, I managed to calm myself down and walk out of the room like nothing happened.
About seven hours later at around 1 o’clock, when my mom, my sister, and I got home, the upset feeling was still with me. I quickly got ready for bed and closed my door. I tried to fall asleep, but instead I thought about the events that happened during the day. I started crying like a baby again, but this time, I couldn’t manage to stay quiet. My mom came in, alarmed, and quickly asked what was wrong in a harsh tone. I could not say anything, worried that she would laugh it off or make fun of me. She sat on my bed and said nothing. We sat like that for ten long, awkward minutes. Then when I was done crying and calmed down, she asked me again, but this time in a different way, “Ariana, will you please tell me what’s wrong?”
I searched for a way to explain to her that I was fine, but my go-to response did not come out as easily as it should have. Finally I told her the whole story in one long, run-on sentence, and added to the end,“I never want to feel that left out and lonely again, but I know it’s going to happen because I’m always going to be the youngest and I hate it so much and it’s all your fault because you had to give birth to me so late!”
My mom softly explained to me that just because I was the youngest did not mean that I always had to be left out. She explained to me that she was the youngest, and that she had the same problem. “If you don’t want to be left out,” she said, “just make yourself known. Maybe all the older kids didn’t even know that you were lonely because you were in the corner. It’s OK to tell people the truth. Just tell them that you don’t like being lonely, and I can promise you that they will not make fun of you as long as you show them that you aren’t playing around.” These four sentences changed my life for the better. I learned how to stop being that awkward shy girl. My cousins now know how I feel when they leave me out, and together, we figured out a way to overcome this problem with anyone. That night, in my bedroom at 1 o’clock in the morning, I promised my mom that I would never keep a problem like this to myself, and that I would tell someone about it and have that person help me through it.