(This essay was written in two hours for my final in this class).
Grace A. Poynter
Ms. Brandi Wallace
English 101
10 December 2018
Winging It
When I think of challenges, my bizarre mind oddly goes to the TV show “Friends”. The show is about six people who come together and face their day-to-day obstacles, generally in a hilarious way. All six of them go through normal life challenges, and sometimes even some whacky ones that they never expected. Isn’t that accurate for our lives, too? We mostly expect challenges to rise in our lives, even if we don’t want them to happen. Sometimes it’s normal ones such as job or family issues, and sometimes it’s silly ones such as hauling a couch up a twisty staircase into a new apartment. These challenges could change us completely, or we could forget them by tomorrow. What truly matters when we are faced with obstacles is how we handle them. I have had a few challenges this year, and have tried my best to overcome them all.
The first challenge I have experienced this year was starting college. I had never wanted to continue my education because I was not a great student in high school. I essentially despised the thought of spending at least four more years studying and trying to get a degree that would cost me thousands of dollars. In May 2018, I have no idea what changed that thought. Unbeknownst to my parents at the time, I decided to apply at Wallace Community College, having no inkling of a major I wanted or a career I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. That summer semester I took three classes. One class I had taken was speech, and I was mortified to stand in front of people and talk. I worked hard, making myself talk in front of coworkers and family for practice, and finally ended up with an A in the class. I have really tried to push myself to go outside of my comfort zone for school, and pushed myself to make great grades. I have given up on the fraction of social life I had, reduced hours at a job I love, and made my family upset a few times because I couldn’t spend as much time with them anymore. Making myself overcome this challenge has made my self-esteem increase greatly. For once, I am proud of myself for keeping my grades up and being able to brag a little when my family ask how I am doing in school.
Growth in the workplace is another challenge I have faced this year. I work at a gymnastics place in town, teaching kids from three-years-old to seventeen-years-old how to do gymnastics. At the beginning of the year, my boss decided that I had enough experience to start working with the optional team, which is the higher level of competitive gymnasts. I was somewhat petrified, since it seemed like such a big jump from teaching handstands and cartwheels to back-tucks on the balance beam. With this advancement comes a lot more responsibility because of how dangerous gymnastics can be. Thankfully, I have a remarkable boss who has educated me well enough to know the precautions to take, such as how to spot gymnasts on new skills and assuring everything is soft and padded in case someone happens to land wrong. On one occasion, I was spotting a floor pass where the gymnast sprints from the corner and does a few somersaults, ending with a flip backwards in the air. It was my first time spotting it, and the first time the gymnast had performed it on the floor. I am pretty sure I was more terrified than she was. Nonetheless, we made it through and she didn’t land on her head, which is always a plus. Just like that gymnast doing a new tumbling pass, I didn’t “land on my head” either, even if it felt like I would when my boss told me I would be moving up in my job.
The worst challenge I experienced this year was when I had to put my horse down. I had gotten Missy, my horse, as an Easter gift in 2013. For years, I went on horseback rides with my uncle. I especially remember a trail ride taken in Sneads, Florida, where a turkey crept up behind us and suddenly gobbled. That day, my cousin and uncle were with me, and we were all three rocketed forward on our horses. Through the years, we had taken many rides together, even entering in some Barrel Racing competitions just for fun. On the cold rides, I would lean forward and snuggle up on the back of her neck for warmth, taking in that sweet horse hair smell of her reddish mane as it tickled my nose. One day last year, she startled for no apparent reason while I was on her back, dashing off across a paved road and into a cluster of pine trees. As I hit every low-hanging limb, I was pulling on her reins, yelling for her to stop, and trying everything I knew to try to gain control again of my 1,300 pound animal. After I broke both reins, she began to decelerate enough that I decided it was a great time to roll off, and thankfully I hit a pile of sticks and debris. A few months later in March, we found out that she had something wrong with her stomach and that there was no help for her. That was the hardest affair I have had to deal with so far in my life, because I had to stand there as I heard her body fall down in the trailer. I had to help my father dig a hole to bury her in our backyard. As the months have gone by, I have realized I have to look at it as a positive. If I still had Missy, I probably would not be as focused on school and other things. I had five years of great memories with her, and I feel as though she probably had five years of great memories with me, too.
Challenges affect us all in different ways. Last year, I don’t think I mentally could have handled any of these challenges. This year, I handled them with some tears and a lot of determination, making myself push through and come out better on the other side. I have grown in ways of being able to adjust when obstacles come my way, not just lying down and being run over by them. Essentially, my old gymnast mentality comes back to me in some of these trials, and I just wing it and hope I don’t fall on my head.
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