PERSONAL NARRATIVE ESSAY #1

PERSONAL NARRATIVE ESSAY #1

 

GLASSES TAUGHT ME

KMLA 18TH WAVE

131031 KIM YESUEL(LILLIAN)

 

It was cloudy. A skinny girl with a long brown hair seemed excited. She was talking to everyone she could get a reach of. Next to her, a relatively small girl was listening to the music with earphones on. Two opposite girls used to be the best friends. At the start of the journey, they still were. But the change we didn’t recognize changed everything.

She and I were the best friends when we were young. In that cloudy day, we were going on a camp to Europe, and were waiting for the Bus to Incheon airport. She and I haven’t seen each other for 3 years since the elementary school, but I couldn’t express the happiness of meeting her properly because she was talking so actively that I didn’t have the space to peak in. She had become more active and extroverted than I remember, and I had grown to be a quiet person, which is different from what she had in her memories. Eventually, when I, with earphones on, and she sat together on the bus, there formed a quiet island around us until 3 hours passed. Then she said, “Umm..Hi! Good to see you again after 3 years,” she checked her watch, “and 3 hour passed.” I just laughed at her humorous comment and started talking.

I thought the camp would be successful and exciting if I had her as a friend. However, she made other friends, and we rarely talked for 5 days of sharing the hotel room. After that, the roommate suddenly changed, and we didn’t have any more conversation until the camp ended. I was angry at her for changing the roommate without asking my opinion. Or perhaps, it was just immature jealousy of her being closer to other friends than me.

It was last year that we met again at the school as classmate. She and I managed to be friends to chat with, but neither she nor I reproached the ‘camp story.’ One year passed, and it was last December when everything was over and we sat together in class. During a P.E class, studying math in classroom instead of going to the cold gym, that ‘camp matter’ popped out of my memory. “Hey, you remember that camp 2 years ago, right?” I asked her indifferently, keep writing math formula. Her reaction was different from what I expected. She showed a disturbed look as if she was stabbed in the almost-healed scar. She said, “You didn’t say sorry after breaking my glasses! I was disappointed at you.” Astonished at the story I first heard, I went through the memory 2 years ago, and remembered that she was wearing contact lenses from the 6th day of the camp. She was thinking that it was me who broke her glasses, and it triggered her to be farther from me.

She and I were feeling the gap of the memory and the reality when we met at the camp. I still think that gap was the problem. But, if I had not been afraid of being closer with people, if I had expressed my emotion more, and talked about the certain changes more, I could have been closer with people, and had more exciting journey. Sometimes I feel so desperate to make friends or talk to somebody, or annoyed at myself because of introverted personality. But I think I can overcome it because of the experience at camp. I realized that the way I face people were wrong, and now I know that I have to change the way. Now, I thank that ‘camp matter’ which taught me important lesson. Express yourself.