Brianna Collins English 1102 Ingram September 10, 2012 What its like to be ME: Defining the Undefinable

Draft 3 I sit here with my eyebrows scrunched and a wrinkled forehead, thinking. In my bed, bundled in blankets and engulfed in a large grey sweatshirt, I sit pondering the question I never once asked myself before: Who am I? My mind wonders and scrambles for an answer, trying to discover a definition to what exactly it means to be me. It makes me no difference whether or not I have access to my phone or laptop; this is not a question that can be answered by a Google search. No textbook, website, or individual can give me the answer. Why is that? Because there is no answer, these next few pages are my best attempt of defining something undefinable. This writing is simply unjust, no one will ever know what it is like to be me or know who I am. Hell, I dont even know who I am. But we can try to imagine, we can pretend that we know; pretend that we have some sort of idea who Brianna Antonette Collins is. Can we imagine waking up each day and not being able to see? Everything appears as a colorful blur, shades of different shadows and blurs. For a view of city street lights to appear as a mystical array of dark colors sprinkled with gold and silver glitter; for your world to seem like the artwork of a creative 4 year old. To grasp what its like to be severely near sighted is something that most people will never get. So I just dont understand how I can describe what its like to be me with words. I know it will take a legit imagination and a decent amount personal creativity to slightly have an idea. So now that we get how complex it is to actually put yourself in someones shoes lets try to envision something a bit more complex. Imagine a family, one that consists of one mother, two boys,

and two girls; nothing more, no aunts, uncles, cousins, or grandparents. Next pretend you are a member of this family, and you are the eldest. All of your life you had to take care of your brothers and sister because mommy needed you, it was your job to help. You had to change diapers, cook dinner, and clean up after everyone at a young age. You and your mother dont have the best relationship, you barely see her. But when you do its either because youre in trouble, you guys are arguing about something, or she needs you to do something. You are closest to your brother who is only three years younger than you. Due to this relatively small gap in age, you both have a lot in common and enjoy doing a lot of the same things. You both are very competitive and love to compete with each other in almost everything; things from video games, who can load the dish washer faster, even whose burger is better put together in the McDonalds drive thru. He is your bike riding buddy, your walking partner, and ear to listen when you are upset. No one understands how frustrating your mom can be but him so you always have someone to understand your frustrations. Every morning before school you both pick out an outfit for the day and go into the others room for a yay or nay. In a sense, although it is weird to say, your little brother is your best friend. As you and your brother grow in age and size you just grow closer and closer. Here you have a best friend who is always there no matter what, he has to, he lives with you and has the same blood running through his veins. There is no better feeling then knowing that you will always have a best friend no matter what. People will come in and out of your life, people move and go on with life, but your brother will always be there. But as in any situation, with growth comes change. Next thing you know, youre moving. To a town you never heard of, away from the only home you ever knew, all of your friends and family. It takes a while for you and your family to get moved into your new home. It takes practically no time at all to realize you hate this new town. You have nothing to do, nowhere to go, and nobody to do anything with; no one except your brother. Your brother goes from being your best friend, to your only friend. You go to the movies together on the weekend, go for walks around the neighborhood, and eventually even local parties. You both only have each other in this

new strange world. You have each other for entertainment, consolation, and happiness in a hopeless place. You both share the same pain and discomfort of missing home and friends and all while being in a strange new and boring place. Even though you two were already close, this move brought you both closer than ever before. In the short time of being in a new environment you both have already shared countless laughs, and unforgettable memories, it becomes a daily thing; a day doesnt pass without him bringing a smile to your face or making you laugh so hard you question if you can make it to the bathroom before you pee on yourself from the uncontrollable giggles. So here you are in this new town that you hate, wondering everyday how you got here. On a brand new quest, a brand new adventure, of establishing yourself to a brand new group of people. In a new state of self, letting not only the people around you know who you are, but re-teaching yourself who you are. It takes that, being taken out of your comfort zone and away from your happy place to show exactly who you are. So now, lets imagine you are in class, like any other day and all of a sudden you feel a vibration on the middle of your lap. You look down to see the bright screen of your cell phone with a picture of your mom in the middle. She never calls during school; your mom is the type of woman who thinks highly of education and its importance so she would never call you during school, not during learning time. So you know right away that her calling is of great importance. Your heartbeat begins to increase as you reach down and pick up your phone from where you had it hiding from the eyes of your teacher, and you answer it. Before you can say a thing your ear is ambushed with the whelps of your mother in panic. She attempts to inform you that your best friend, your brother, has had a seizure in his gym class and has been rushed to the hospital. BANG, your phone falls to the middle of your desk and slides back into your lap; the world around you just disappears. Your eyes become blurred with hot tears rushing down your face and onto your desk and any sounds around you are washed out by the sounds of your own cries. All eyes are now on you, every head turned in your direction, faces confused as to what would cause such an outburst. Your teacher approaches you and asks you what has happened. You look

up at her with tears in your eyes, only to fall back down into your hands and cover your face. Hysterically crying now, you hear your mother still on the phone yelling your name, unable to form words you hand your teacher your phone. Your mother and teacher talk for a few minutes. Yes mam, I will find a way to get her to the hospital, your teacher finally hangs up the phone, and everything is quite. All accept the sobs and whimpers of you. He will be just fine baby girl your teacher says in an attempt to comfort you, my dad use to have seizures all the time. You really want to believe what she says, that everything will be ok, but something inside was telling you otherwise. She asks if you have a ride to the hospital and before you can answer her a guy next to you volunteers to take you. Unable to go on with class due to the heart wrenching incident that has just occurred the teacher unofficially dismisses you both to go. You gather your things and quickly head for the door. Before you walk out she stops you and requests a prayer. The whole class agrees with the gesture and becomes one in a circle of holding hands. With every head bowed and every eye closed your teacher leads the class in a request to God, praying that your brother will be ok. After what feels like a lifetime you finally arrive at the hospital. You sprint to the entrance of the ER, through the giant glass doors, and directly to the front help desk. You franticly explain your reasoning for being here to the woman behind the desk. She looks at you with a confused face, the trance is broken when a black man with an arm cast interrupts and abruptly approaches you. He knew exactly who you were here to see. He explains that you cannot see your brother until your mother arrives. He then directs you to a room on the side of the ER waiting area. Inside this room is two small sofas and a few individual chairs. The room is rather small, with a little green plant in the corner, a few magazines and a box of tissues on the middle of the table. In the individual chairs sit two women that you have never seen. They quickly introduce themselves as the school nurse and principle from your brothers school. You bum-rush them with questions about what happened, but neither of them really

knew what was going on. It scares you even more, all they can tell you is he was playing basketball in his gym class and got hit with the ball in his lower area. You question can being hit with a ball do all of this? Minutes pass that feel like hours, seconds that feel like minutes, as you wait for the arrival of your mother. Unable to sit still inside the ER you and the boy who brought you go outside for air. Everyone keeps telling you the same thing he will be ok, he will be alright but all you want is to see your brother, safe and ok. Finally your mother arrives, she runs right past you and into the hospital, past the front desk, past the room, and straight to her son. You run in after her but once you enter the ER she is out of sight. You begin the search for your mom, by first going to the small waiting room you were in before. When you enter the room and see nothing but confused faces you run back out into the hallway, everyone who was in the room follows out behind you. You and everyone else stand in the hall lost and confused as to where your mother could be. Everyones rambles of confusion along with the mutters of the other strangers in the room flood the area. The noise is suddenly broken by the sharp screams of a woman. These haunting screams pierce the entire building. Right at that moment inside you knew that was your mom. The middle school principle tries to assure you that those painful screams of torture and upmost pain are not those of your mother. But no matter what anyone said, you knew. They wouldnt allow you to the back to check if that was your mother. So you are forced back into the isolated room. You are back where you started suffering through passing time as it becomes more and more painful to sit through. After sitting for what felt like forever the black man with the arm cast comes into the room and tells you that you can see your brother now. FINALLY! You jump up, wipe your tears, and run to the back. The man points you in the direction of the room your brother is in. You make target of the room and everything else around you disappears. You are focused and determined to get to your brother, to see him looking at you and smiling, telling you he is ok and make you stop crying by insulting you and calling you a punk like he always does. You just want to hug him and hold him,

make sure he is ok. So at this time walking through that door was more important to you then taking your next breath. Your heart is going a million miles per hour as you push people to the side to get to that room, your almost there when BAM an arm comes across your chest in attempt to stop you. In your determination you viciously move the arm and continue on your mission. Two more steps to the door and then the arm comes across your chest again, MOVE! you yell. You face the owner of the arm in rage only to discover it is your own mother. With a confused look you glare up at your mothers face, you can tell she has been crying and is trying to hold in tears, just for you. She looks you directly in the eyes and says He didnt make it. Your entire body goes numb; you reply what? those words just didnt make sense, they werent processing in your mind. He is gone those words echo in your mind, you try to understand, it takes a few seconds for them to actually hit you. What do you do next? You run, you run away, to where? You dont know you just run as fast as you can like your running for your life; you just want to get away. What are you running from? You dont know you just run. Eventually you end up in a corner, crying is not the word to describe what you are now doing. Your whole world just ended before you. It felt as if you lost everything you ever had, just in that moment. Nothing around you existed; it was almost as if you died yourself. That is simply a feeling words cannot explain. After this, you dont know what to do. Your only friend, your childhood friend, your best friend is gone. In your eyes the only person who really knew you, who truly cared about you was gone. After this, you have no idea who you are. You have no idea what makes you happy, what makes you laugh; you dont know what you like. You have no idea what it means to be you, or what you live for anymore. Now, lets come back to reality, back to today and right now. Until you go through what was just described, you will have no clue what its like to be Brianna Antonette Collins, not the slightest idea. To live your life every day to make your little brother proud and live the experiences he would want to that he will never get to. For everything you do to have the goal of sharing the story of his life. For his departure as an incentive to live right by God so that you can see him again in Heaven. For it to take all

of your endurance to go on each day with the pain of missing your best friend, but still have a smile on your face every day and still live your life. For your life to be an example to your other heartbroken siblings left here on this planet, to live to make a grieving mother proud, and for your biggest fear to be failure and your biggest dream success.

To be hungry for success Success that I can share Share with my family Success to make my family proud All of my family But to be afraid of falling short Afraid of failure Afraid of disappointment To want something so bad Something so far out of reach Aspirations, dreams, goals I cannot fail Who else will lead the path for My little brothers and sisters to follow? How else will I get to Heaven? To see my brother again I must be successful I must succeed My personal success is So much bigger than me Who am I? His name was Geremy Alexander Carter, I am his big sister; rest in peace bro, May 25, 2011.