A Mind of Questions

The admiration feels as if it will last forever, but it will come to an end. The joys of success are unforgettable but could haunt you as when one is no longer good enough.  Endless hours, mass amounts of energy, and unmatchable emotions are used every day in hopes of accomplishing one’s goal. Not often enough is it hat goal to make The Dean’s List or earn the highest rank in one’s class, but instead attention is diverted to a game that will reject more of our young adults than it accepts.

I understand. I am one that wants nothing more than to play the game I love. I wish to get better and become the greatest that I can be, but as time has passed and I look back on all that has been sacrificed I cannot help but wonder what life would be if I had chosen a different path. Education, art, music, theater, or community service, all things that I have not been able you pursue.  Was it all worth it? The early mornings, the late nights, the hours spent failing just to rise up and fail once more, was it worth the pain? What could I have been? How much could I have accomplished, if I had picked up a whisk, instead of a bat? These are all questions that clutter my mind, with no hopes of every being answered.  Was it worth it?

Yes.

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Men We Reaped — By: Jesmyn Ward

The excerpt that I read from Jesmyn Ward’s novel, Men We Reaped, had the narrator touching on her childhood. She spoke about her parents separation, the areas in which she lived (New Orleans, Mississippi) , and her experiences as an African-American female in a school filled  with Caucasian students.

I was able to relate to her struggle with being different from her peers, at school. When I was in middle school, I was one of five colored males in my class. Even at that young of an age I felt the separation. I knew I was different and would not always be treated the same way as some of my closest friends, simply because of the color of my skin. One would think that in high school I would not have to deal with these challenges. Sadly, because of the honors and advanced placement classes that I was enrolled in nothing changed. I was still one of few African-Americans and felt that I dark stain on a white wall. Even now I sometimes feel this was, but I have learned to deal with it. I now understand that this is how things will always be.

-Justin Christian