My Best Friend example essay topic

When I was five years old, my mother and I created a scrapbook. My mother, a lover of the arts and crafts, helped me every day to put together this book of my life. We covered the book in a textured fabric full of vivid designs and fractals. In three places on the front cover, we left spaces for the best pictures to be placed. Inside the book we put hundreds of colorful pages of paper, each divided into categories. As my life progressed, I added pictures, full of cherished memories, to paint a detailed image of my life as I grew up.

To this day, I still add pictures and glance back at the pictures I added years ago. I was two years old, and I was a "daddy's girl". My dad was my best friend. Together we read, played games, took pictures, and stayed up all night. We were "night owls".

I wanted to do everything with my dad. We stayed up through the wee hours of the night listening to music and having fun. My mom was very disapproving; I was so young. One night when I was three, Dad and I were singing Tom Petty's "Love in the Elevator" around one o'clock in the morning. My mom stomped down the stairs and yelled at us because she said "it was too late to be 'partying' with a three-year-old".

I was mad at Mom for several weeks because she was taking the fun out of my life. It was not until I was twelve that I saw my mom's side of the argument against my dad. When I was with my dad, I felt the strongest sense of belonging. However as the years passed that bond diminished along with my feeling of belonging. I was four years old, and I loved to dance. My scrapbook contains numerous photographs of my dance classes and performances.

I joined Beverly Benardi's Dance Studio with hopes to pursue my dream of being a ballet dancer at Palais Garnier in Paris. I took four lessons every week: ballet, jazz, tap, and baton. Recitals were my favorite because they were my chance to shine. One evening during the spring ballet at the Topeka Performing Arts Center, I lost my balance and plummeted to the floor.

I got up, hoping the audience had not seen me. I could not remember the rest of the dance because I was so utterly humiliated. I ran off the stage crying, and I heard the audience laugh. I never got on stage to dance again after that mortifying incident. All of my friends made fun of me, and I eventually quit dancing because I felt like I did not belong. I was eleven years old, and I loved softball.

In my scrapbook, I devoted an entire category to softball memories. I have played fast-pitch softball since I was five. I played for the same team for six years. In the summer of 1996, my team played a total of six games on a sweltering hot day in the Division II State Tournament in Kansas City. Since I was a pitcher, catcher, and shortstop, I participated in every game. During the sixth game of the day, my coach asked me to be the catcher.

I did not want to because it was extremely hot and I was exhausted, but I agreed. I overheated and blacked out behind home plate during a play. I missed the ball and allowed the other team to score two points to win the game. My coaches carried me off the field and put ice-cold washcloths on my face. I felt responsible for my team's defeat in the State Tournament, and I felt that everyone else blamed me also. No one on my softball team was very nice to me after that day.

I was twelve years old, and I moved to Tennessee. My scrapbook changed after the move, because I lost all of my friends and took on new habits. One summer day in 1997, my mother told me to begin packing all of my belongings. We had just put the house on the market six days before, and we were planning to move in a week. Upon our arrival in Tennessee, we encountered many problems: the alarm system would not stop going off, the moving van could not make it up the steep driveway, and there was much dispute about the selection of bedrooms.

It was an extremely chaotic yet humorous day. I was thirteen years old, and I was a loner. I sat at home, played on the computer, took pictures of random things, continued my scrapbook, and slept. I did not like anyone at my new school. I did not fit in, and people made fun of the way I talked. They criticized my accent and my alternative manner of dress.

I was ahead in my schoolwork and became very bored, with no friends or fun activities to partake in. I longed to be somebody. In my pursuit to find happiness, I found nothing but trouble and calamity. I was fifteen, and I found my best friend. In my United States History class, I sat next to Laura Dur fee.

We began hanging out on the weekends and having a good time. I had never had a best friend like her. We did stupid things together and made memories to last a lifetime. We took the most random pictures wherever we happened to be. The section in my scrapbook that I made for Laura and me is to be continued. Often, around four or five o'clock in the morning, we drove to Krispy Kreme to get doughnuts and a Mayfield chocolate milk.

Then, we went to the football field and sat in the bleachers. We ate doughnuts, drank beer and chocolate milk, and had the best time of our lives. After we were finished, we went home and went to sleep. We repeated this process three or four nights each week. I finally fit in, and had someone to relate to. But the bliss was ended by the trouble I got in approximately a year later.

I was sixteen, and I got in legal trouble. My life changed dramatically because I lost all my friends except one. My family was infuriated and all my trust and freedom was gone. My mom took pictures of me while I was in and out of trouble, and she added them to my scrapbook so I would not forget, although I will never forget regardless. It was a normal day in weight training. The principal came into the room and took me to the office.

They searched my belongings and found a multitude of illegal substances. After I was released from a juvenile detention facility, I was placed in an in-patient rehabilitation center. Again I found myself alone, with no one to belong to. I only got to see my family once every other week. Laura and I did not get to continue our bizarre outings. After I got out of the legal system, I straightened my life out and enrolled in college.

I was seventeen, and I went to college. My first day of college was an embarrassment. I walked into my first class, only to find out I was in the wrong room. When I arrived at the correct classroom ten minutes late, I attempted to enter silently. The door loudly slammed into my backpack, threw me into the room, and the contents of my purse were dispersed about me. Then, as I went in to sit down, I tipped my desk over, which catapulted a girl's drink into the air.

When I left the classroom, I tripped over an ash tray and garbage was strewn everywhere. To top it off, when I was getting a can of soda, eight cans popped out of the machine and spewed all over me. It was only the first day and I had already ruined my chances at being normal. My hopes to fit in were demolished. After recounting all these life altering experiences, I realize that I have learned an outstanding amount about myself. Never will I be just like everyone else, and I bet no one has a scrapbook like mine either.

I have discovered that "fitting in" is not necessarily what I want, nor is it necessarily what is best for me.