Personal Narrative: Don T Shoot The Shot

Take the shot. Shoot the ball. I have been playing varsity basketball for exactly 105 days and these phrases are near the only ones I hear from my coach. It’s not that I have an atrocious shot, I just can’t shoot the ball. Just as I can never seem to shoot the ball, trying to write this essay has proved despairingly difficult. Growing up, I came as close to living the “Black American Dad” story while actually having a dad. My mom was a high school drop-out who turned her life around. Meanwhile, my dad was a high school drop-out turned…dad. I don’t know how well my parents thought relationships begun at gas stations pan out, but obviously well enough to have me. Part Black. Part Korean. Elementary school “friends” would bully me for having different hair, different skin tone, different eyes than them. At home, things were not much better. While most of our life centered in Riverside, we seemed to live everywhere but. With living in questionable areas and constant exposure to gang violence and drugs, it appeared to me that my family was aimless, and yet headed in the wrong direction. …show more content…
I tried to find a better way to phrase the truth, but I’ve never told anyone and I thought it better to be frank. He would beat my mom for the mildest of infractions. And anyone who would hazard a comment defending her would earn their own slaps. I remember it got so horrid that I would imagine ways to defend my mom- a Gumball catapult being among my favorites. One day out of the many they fought, I set out with a mindset of confronting them. To proclaim my want for a family that left marks of affection rather than affliction. Interrupting these wistful thoughts, I saw something fall to the ground that caused me to see red. A gun. My parents noticed soon after I did, both turning towards me; I couldn’t take the shot then