my college essay assignment from last year
turned into more of a creative writing piece.
looking back, it’s terribly written for a college essay…and sort of crappy in general. but im gonna take a risk and just post it here and id appreciate it if you cool cats can tell me what you think of it (as just a piece of writing, not in terms of college essay shit)
and if the person it’s about (MELISSA) reads it, id like them to know: I hope you aren’t offended/weirded out by it or whatever, its just me from a year ago being honest and etc…im actually nervous/hesitant for you to see this, but whatevah, here it is.
@1 year ago“Raymundo!!!” cries a voice.
My body is slammed against a table.
My papers fly into the air.
My body is squeezed in a painful hug.
The location is at my high school freshman orientation. My name is not Raymundo, but Ryan. And the voice is that of Melissa.
To say she changed my life would be cliché and speculative, for who can even judge change as a form of measurement in all its abstract nature. Let alone say it’s changed our lives when we are only a quarter of the way through it. The only way I saw its affects was in the smallest ways: my bare baby-blue bedroom walls began to be spotted with collages and lists. My apparel slowly morphed from generic, half-thought out choices of Mervyns polos to hipster flannels bought at low prices from vintage stores on Haight Street. Then there was my entire mindset, which moved from Catholic school boy to free wheeling spiritual agnostic.
There was something so original about her. Throughout my life I had only met carbon copy after carbon copy, but here was someone truly original. Her perfect humor and use of formal, retro lingo created a strange blend of spacey awkwardness I had never ever discovered before. It was enthralling. I made it my new life goal to win her friendship. Her attention. Her approval.
“Are you troubled because of someone you like? Hm, yes, this friend of yours?” my high counselor inquires as I sit in her office holding a list of psychologists she has just handed to me.
“No. No. No.” I hastily reply, knowing it would be too much work to explain my infatuation with this girl; not to mention one who had dropped out of that high school only two years before. “I think I’m just too socially-based. My emotions just get thrown about when I’m obsessed with being liked by certain people…By this person.”
One simple text from Melissa meant the entire universe to me, just as no response from her would send me in depression. She controlled me and through all the hurt, gave me “tough love;” made me a stronger individual void of my former setbacks of self pity and negativity. She cultured me and introduced me to art. She gave me lists of movies to see, books to read, people to research, music to listen to, museums to see etc.. and I kept up as best as I could. As a result, I was transformed.
I found it a pity that the rest of the human race was oblivious to her; that the most extraordinary person could be found living in a small house on a common street in the middle of Santa Clara. Albeit, within that house was also the lives of our parties, the queen of contradictions, and the enemy of our parents. For as she would burst through my front door in an odd outfit of an early 1900s blouse, jean short shorts and an Egyptian collar, she would go racing into my room. Belting out a Broadway show tune in her beautiful vibrato, she would carve my name into my wooden dresser and write “We put the cult in culture!” on my wall in pencil.
“Why would I apologize for being myself? I’m being me. You’re always yourself, whether or not you’re acting like someone else, it’s still a part of you, and that’s who you are.” Melissa says.
“She’s just too much.” Mother says.
“What a joke!” Melissa exclaimed, after receiving her fortune from a casually dressed middle aged woman sitting at a fold out table. “She said I was going to go into medicine when I’m older and get married and have lots of children!” We all burst out laughing; knowing that all of these statements were the epitome of everything Melissa was not. Yet, I, on the other hand, had gotten a precise analysis of my present life along with an eerily accurate fortune that I could realistically see myself fulfilling. Maybe it was just a coincidence.
“I’m majoring in nutrition.”
“I asked Nick if he would marry me. He said maybe.”
“We picked out our children’s names: Jack and Renee.”
It only took three years for that thing to come. Change. Whatever you want to call it. The moment it sparked something in Melissa, we were offended.
Since when did this entirely unique childish entity start caring what people thought of her? When did the Junior drop out get admitted to NYU? When did the asexual funny girl start expressing who she thought was hot? We were horrified, confused, saddened because the entertainer in our lives had left and reality had kicked in. We had labeled her, and categorized her and wouldn’t let her become one of us because for so long she wasn’t. She was always someone else. Finally that shining, mesmerizing comedy act was up and the real Melissa was in full view.
I was devastated and felt she had betrayed me. Deep within me was that solemn oath to never change. To never give in to that transience. The thought of becoming a hypocrite just like every adult and to move on frightened me beyond anything. If I did, my life would be wasted. So, I had vowed that every thought I have now will always be mine and every dream I have will forever be my dream.
“This is just like Star Wars. You’re Anakin and I’m Obi Wan, and I trained you, but now you are more powerful than me. You have to re-teach me everything I taught you.”
Now, Melissa is a hermit. Getting ready to go to college but staying mostly within her house void of a facebook and only communicating with six people (one of those being me). Would I be at the place I am today without her? Depending on the person you ask, the answer could be yes or no, and if the answer is yes, there is still the question of whether I should scold her or thank her for it.
Melissa said she woke me up from being brainwashed for the past seventeen years. Mother said that after seventeen years, I am now being brainwashed by Melissa. Well, so be it. I’m always being brainwashed. We all are. For better and for worse. Through it all, I am still learning from that girl, to accept people as they are and as they will be.
As I stand here at her school for independent learners’ prom, I watch her adorn in a sleek, red 1950s dress. In one hand she clutches her boyfriend’s hand and in the other she changes the music from rap to Beauty and the Beast. I now know the bittersweet conclusion of it all; in the way we are all each other and never what we seem to be. But in that way, we can always find our inner beauty and truth in the person right next to us. Everyone is normal. Some people just cover it up better.
#college essay #melissa #favorite
