Enedina Villagomez
Instructor Cather
Composition 1
21 September 2015
The Journey to a New Beginning
I am by myself wearing my torn blue jeans and an old flannel t-shirt like usual. It is cool outside, but I decided to leave my gloves at home feeling comfortable with my warm shirt and my old boots. Walking through my grandfather’s ranch, his spirt accompanies me at this moment. The breeze blowing across my face is the best that I can find. I take nothing with me when I leave my house because I know that I won't be gone too long.
It is early fall so it is cool outside but not cold. The leaves have begun turning colors so there is the beautiful colors like oranges, yellows, greens, and reds on trees’ leaves. The red colors of the leaves remind me of the maple trees that used to be outside of my house in California. The floor of the ranch is damp but not muddy. There are moss-covered stones that litter the path I am walking. Some of them are loose, and others are firmly embedded in the ground. For the most part they are the rocks that you have to watch out for when you are running a cross-country race so that you do not sprain your ankle. They are the type of rocks that are annoying at picnics and camp fires because they are not big enough to sit on and too big to move. I keep walking because I know that ahead of me is a small lake where I can quietly sit and listen to the water.
As I am reaching the lake I start remembering all of the voices in my head telling me how much of an outcast I am. Everywhere that I go I feel that everyone is talking. I can feel them judging me how I talk, stand and what I am wearing. I have always been skinny and tall. I can feel how my blood rushes through my body up and down. My parents have told me. “You don’t live for them,” and it is true I live for myself to do better because this is who I am. People say that I won’t find love, but I know that there has to be someone that will fall in love with this outcast that everybody dislikes. Some of the closets people that have crossed my life have said so many mean things to me. For example, my relatives would always tell me” I am not well enough for this world. It is like if I wasn’t meant for this life or if I just wasn’t what they had expected. But I do the best that I can do. I have a decent job and I attend a community college. I don’t care what people think about me. Being myself is ok and I know that someone special is out their waiting for someone like me. Until then, I’ll play to be the outcast. As I walk towards the lake, I see a bottle that is empty and crushed. When I see it I don't stop to pick it up, but I make a mental note of its location. I myself as the crushed bottled water because it has been left out and forgotten.
Once I reach the lake, I sit on a rock and watch the water move slowly and around the stones are leaves. As I sit there a deer appears on the other side of the lake. Not a buck, but just a standard doe. She walks down the side of the basin walls and approaches the water to drink. I just sit there quietly enjoying the peacefulness that makes both the deer and myself feel safe. I can see how calm she is and this is the only place that I’m not judged or feel left out of anything. After drinking, the doe nods her head up and then runs away.
After sitting in peaceful contemplation for some time, I get up and walk across the lake around it. Being no acrobat, my feet get a bit wet with the cold water. I continue along the rough forgotten path and reach a clearing. Since it is fall the clearing appears to be nothing more than an open field with tall grass. However, in the spring it is a wonderful garden of wildflowers.
Being here gets me thinking about the single element of change. Change occurs in many different forms and is carried out in many different ways. However, just recently, I have come to the realization that change can be the deepest of all subjects. I always assumed that change occurred when you moved to a new town or when you lost someone close to you. Those are elements to change, yes, but change doesn't have to occur over a single dramatic event. It can just happen overnight when your brain determines it's time to do something different. I was the type of person that I looked closely at what people thought of me. I always wanted to be better, but the more I tried I’ve never could please anyone. Feeling the breeze and the peacefulness of this place has made me acknowledge that me being an outcast in school, on the job or anywhere. I am who I am I believe that everyone is unique to their own ways.
For obvious reasons, people reject change. Especially people who are close to each other because they feel that this change is going to separate them and make them not as close as they used to be. They fight the change until they force the person to change. It's sad how this works, but in reality, it's probably the single most reason why people change. The people we love, love us so much that they want us to remain the way we are forever. Forever is a long time and not one person can always stay the same. Sometimes if the people we love would just accept the change and go with it, they would understand where the change was originally coming from.
It's dangerous to try to stop change and argue against it, especially if the person wants to change so much. The reason that somebody wants to change is usually not their choice, but a feeling that the person feels inside their head and heart. It's almost like a celestial force is making you change and you have no say in the matter but you know you have to because your mental and physical attributes are commanding you to. Maybe the change isn't the best change, but if you dig deeper, the person that you love and know isn't really changing. They are just trying to find themselves, and the one thing they need the most is the support of the people who they care about the most. When the people they care about the most dismiss their change as something unimportant and try to guard down everything by rules and regulations, the person they loved begins to change out of sadness. That the one group of people thought would understand, really has no clue. Maybe change isn't always good or bad, but it could be looked at as something to help you grow. So just remember, if someone is changing, be there for them. Offer your opinion, but help them go through whatever they need to go through because they will do what they need to do regardless of the people that they really do love.
Being here at the lake, I have noticed that being and outcast has made me feel different. By knowing myself for the way that I am, I feel empowered. Noticing the doe leave has made me realize so many thing about how I feel as an outcast. Therefore I have meditated my thoughts and accept the person I am, but I always keep that thought of change.