My Life Essay, Research Paper
Jeff KetchamMay 22, 2000
Autobiography Period 3
Hi, I?m Jeff, I am not just writing about my life, I am letting you know what I think about it so far… How not exciting. For a few years I have learned to love many things as I was growing up. In the beginning I basically loved everything about everything… like animals, people, trees, and all the other things out there that young children love to love. But I found out the hard way that certain places are not fun to children. When I was around the age of three, I was at my grandmother and grandfather?s house when I became extremely curious of an unknown stairwell. I decided to see just might happen when a young child pushes upon a thin, flexible door… and boy did I find out, I fell right down the stairwell, literally head over heels, until I hit rock bottom.
When I was around the age of four I discovered that animals, much like people, dislike being bothered. I first found out that dogs dislike children pulling on their tails, or getting near them while they are eating their dog food, with that in mind I ended up getting to know just how painful a dogs bite can truly be. But the first time a dog bit me didn?t stop me from being curious. Within the same year I found out most dogs are similar in that they don?t like to be bothered too much.
Also around the age of four, I found out what friends were like. I met a kind neighbor of mine, and some of his other friends. They too loved sports, and cartoons, and the other things friends like us adore. My friends and I always played games with each other, like hide and go seek, or tag, and we never really knew why we hid on friends, but we had fun playing the game nonetheless. For a series of years I played stupid little games such as these with my friends, and yet we loved the games to death.
Unfortunately, when I reached the age of five, and began kindergarten, I discovered the natural enemy for boys… GIRLS! We started off ok, no contact, and if they did touch us, we touched someone else and cried out ?you got coodies, no touch backs? and whatnot. Boy did I let my guard down that same year. I was with my fellow classmates during our time for ?napping? and the only girl I ever trusted as a friend rolled over to me, to ?talk.? We talked a little bit, carefully watching the teacher, but for one reason or another I never saw it coming, my first KISS. I was trying to ask her something, when all of a sudden, {WHAM} she kissed me. Faster than I could have ever anticipated, had I known that word I would have still been just as unprepared… It happened in the following manner: she asked me what a kiss felt like, I said I didn?t know, and {POW} she laid a walloping kiss upon my lips. I was stunned, yet I didn?t, and couldn?t find any words to say ?what the hell was that for??… especially at such a young and innocent age. So I just figured it was not real, it didn?t happen to me… or did it?
I grew up with the girl who laid the ?first? kiss on me. She was one of my closer and more dearest friends as well. We went to the playground holding hands, and laughing, and no longer worrying about coodies. Instead we were worrying about being teased by my other friends. Fortunately my other friends didn?t think anything of it. It was then I knew it was fine to be friends with girls…!
Well, when I was a little older, probably around the age of six, I began to really stretch the limit of how high a young child could climb a tree before he got scared, or scared in doing so. I started off with little trees, such as the ones in my front lawn, but I quickly increased my desire to climb higher and higher. Within that year my grandfather and I talked about building a tree house. Unfortunately, when I reached the age of eight, my grandfather became ill, and so we put the tree house on hold. Little did I know that I would never accomplish the goal of having my own tree house at my grandfather and grandmother?s farm. That year my grandfather passed away.
For several years after my grandfather passed away, I felt the desire to cry, yet I couldn?t bare crying and appearing to be any less of a man to any of my friends. Nor could I find the right words to express the total amount of the sadness my heart felt… thinking of why my grandfather had to die, and leave me alone… without any reason or any type of preparation of letting him know, in our last few moment together, that I loved him and wanted to be like him. For years I just thought to myself, ?he left me here, for some reason or another…. but that reason never quite set in until I was ten, the time of my life when I started fishing for fun with my father. I started fishing and taking the filet knife and ending the life of fish, that were little, pathetic, and its not like they were going to live to long anyway… but to just get something to eat… Damn. How pathetic!!
Well, as you can guess, in a way my mind and heart grew up a little faster than the rest of my body. I started understanding why people die, and what makes a person die, but the reason why they have to leave our lives faster than we were ready for was, and for this moment of my life is still well beyond any means of my understanding. But as far as my friends are concerned, I was as fun to them as usual. For the biggest part of my life I have hid any depressing feelings about my past, my present, or even things that may happen in the future to myself. But later in my life I began to show a few more of those dark, depressing feelings… but in my own creative ways.
Well, as I continued to grow in mind and spirit, and very slowly in body my thoughts were steadily increasing. I became more aware of the elements that were most important in my life. I no longer worried too much about the loss of my grandfather. True, I still cared about him, and felt the impact of his departure, but I could now focus on my grandmother and through her, my grandfather.
I began to play songs on the piano of which my grandfather and I had played on for many years prior to his death.
My grandmother, father, and mother could not figure out exactly why I continued to in a way metaphorically pound the keys figuring out how songs went as I played. I played some simple tunes, a few bars from fairly hard songs, but all of them were played by ear, the one thing in music my grandfather and I shared. He began his teaching of music to me by making me repeat notes to myself, and by listening to them by ear… which is how I have played most of the songs I am able to play to this day.
But as I reached the age of twelve, I started enjoying the freedoms of sports, and the short day to day bursts of freedom in the summer. At first I didn?t try to do too many things in the summer, but as I became friends with a friend of a friend, we started trying the harmful and disgusting flavor of smoking. My new friend and I started trying partially used cigarettes, and we hung out for hours on end trying to act cool and grown-up by smoking the cigarettes. I found out through a few tries that they tasted disgusting, and were painstaking to inhale fully into my lungs, but I continued to do this habit for a few summers, and stopped for the rest of the year.
Well, as you might guess I became addicted to smoking… but to prove the point that some people can smoke some and not become addicted to them, and I was one of those fortunate people. However, my friend continued to smoke them into his early high school years. Fortunately I quit for my own sake since it wasn?t cool, or relaxing, or a stress-buster, but a pain in the butt to get our hands on them and even better, it was no longer cool to me. I began a difficult high school tradition of moving from class to class around the age of fourteen. That year I totally gave up the habit of smoking only because it was no longer fun to smoke with friends just to try to fit in, since I fit in with sports.
But for two years I had had this crush on a cute girl, and without her really knowing it I flirted like a rabid dog near a cat. At first, I just tossed small harmless foreign objectiles in her direction. Then I began to throw small wads of paper in her direction, but my smarts told me not to get myself in trouble, but to get others in trouble. With that I got a few of my fellow classmates, and somewhat friends in trouble. With them being mad at me, and the girl of my dreams being only a few feet away I was able to not get a single bit of class work done while I stared at her lovely hair, and cute face, and if I was lucky for a few seconds, her beautiful eyes.
With my heart searching for the meaning of a ?relationship? I stayed shy towards the girl of my dreams. But the following year she stayed in my mind, but I focused more on doing my work and doing it well, and if I saw the girl I so craved to talk with, if I got close enough to her my mind would go blank and I would just wave and or just say nothing… unless I managed to say ?Hi.? She still did not know how I felt about her, yet I was still too immature to know what to think either. So with that in mind, I just did what my friends said to do. As one friend told me, ?If she says hi, just ignore her, if she looks at you look at her and turn away, but don?t give in and say too much, if you can manage to say anything.?
So, within the next year I began to wonder a little more about the opposite sex, first I would look, and then think about them, but when I got close enough to the girl I cared so much about, I would think of what to say, but if she saw me and said hi I would turn and walk away since my mind would go blank at the sight of her eternal beauty. But I often thought of asking her out, but could never get past her looks to place a sentence in my mouth and actually say it to her.
But things were going very smoothly with my family. Sure my family wasn?t the best thing in the world, but what do you expect from a cousin who wants to go fishing, and instead of catching a fish catches your pointer finger, right? She is a little older than myself by a year or two, but she wasn?t coordinated at all to fish for fish and not hurt anyone. But that same year, I found out how little my father cared about hurting other people. When he saw the hook in my finger he suggested to just quickly pull the sucker out. With the gallant effort on my Uncle Walter?s behalf, I cried like a scared child as he tried to pull the hook out of my finger.
My cousin decided to never try to fish with me again since that date, and on the flip side she was never very smooth with sports activities. Around the time of my Aunt Ronda and Uncle Steve?s wedding, the ridiculous accident I wouldn?t live down… my cousin threw a Frisbee at me and since I wasn?t looking at the moment she threw it, I caught it just below my eye. So I went to the wedding with the smallest shiner a guy could ask for.
Well, as you know guys grow up, and never actually finish maturing mentally. I was a prime example of how some guys actually grow up mind wise, and look at the time as the best thing a person could ask for, thus giving it the catchy phrase, ?the present.? To my friends and some family members, I appeared normal, yet, who is to really say what ?normal? is, right? Anyway, to some people I was wiser than my years, to others I was still immature and needed to grow up, but what did they know, other than what they saw within my attitude… just an attitude.
My family was a fairly good family, some people were awkward, others were distant in mind and body, and it didn?t bother me one bit. You could look at my father-like guardian, Bruce A. Ketcham, and note a slight similarity in the small mole on our left cheek, but if you carefully looked us over, and asked general questions, you would find out I am not, nor do I want to actually be related to Bruce because of his personality! You can do the same with my mother-like guardian, Louisa Ketcham, we both have some Italian within our heritages, yet I am not related to her or her personality either.
But to be completely fair, my family isn?t all that bad. There are some people I could possibly live with and never grow tired of being with them. Yet there are a few people I could live with for less than a week and grow very tired of, and easily at that! But like most families there are quite a few people in my family that I honestly would like to know better, and see a whole lot more often.
I would have loved to know my grandfather, Henry Ketcham, a whole lot more. That goes the same for a few of my cousins, I know them, and who is the child of whom, but I don?t quite know enough about my cousins (those of whom I actually like) to really be able to tell if I would like to live closer to them, or not. But of all my cousins, I couldn?t really say which ones I would prefer as a real friend, or just as another friend, but I can say that of the cousins that I know of and like, I would really like to one day introduce all my cousins to each other.
But within the last few years of my high school life, things have gone in many directions. In some ways I have grown apart from certain friends, and closer to others, and been in relationships with a few different girls, and believe me, I know what I?m looking for in a relationship. I know a few of my friends, and they may be interested in just making out, and to see how many girls they have been with, and I know for a fact that they were not in love, but in the general idea of loving being cared for. Me on the other hand, I have found yet several meanings for love, and none of them were simple. I found that if you put all of your heart into just one person the greatest things could happen. But on the other side of the spectrum, you could set yourself up for major disappointment, and be hurt even worse than u were before you got involved.
At first I let myself be guided, and later as I grew into the relationship I began creating the path of which I would like the relationship to flow, and it was worth all the time to learn more than I ever knew I could learn. I had stopped going out for a few months near the end of my tenth grade year, until I realized the girl of my dreams was available in the dating market. I called it this only because I saw several cute girls, but I had my eyes on the girl of my dreams, seeing her in the halls, watching her fight with her boyfriend, who to me was not really her style. He seemed to want to be the person who controls everything about the other person, and I knew she wasn?t made to be treated like a rag doll. So with that in mind, I began flirting with her once she broke up with her boyfriend, and moving in to reach a hand out to hold my hopeful ?cup of life.?
At the first glance I didn?t see to much in the relationship except maybe lust. But as the months rolled by we both moved closer together within our hearts, and then we began to care more and more about each other. But don?t think everything has been perfect with my girlfriend, we have had our ups and downs, but we both love to be in each other?s arms. She loves the way I treat her like a queen, and tell her what she deserves to hear, words that heat the blood from normal to (emphasize the following word letter by letter.)HOTT. She may think I just say words and not intend to mean too much with the words, but I say them because I seriously can?t do more than think of her for several hours a day every single day. I don?t fantasize about her, I just imagine what my life was like, and how it has become something that is a step closer to what I call my own ?nirvana? or ?highest height of happiness.? All things said and one I don?t regret a single thing that has happened between us.
My caring for her has continued to stay strong through thick and thin, through rough and smooth, and I can tell you, the person who is reading my autobiography, thinking to yourself right now, as I explain how I could have done so many things and still think I have so much to continue learning… Well, I definitely hope you don?t just sit there in your seat and just read this for some type of grade, but to rather figure out the very tippy top of my mountain of thoughts. Need I not remind you that I have learned a lot of things, and will continue learning things!
Anyway, things have happened and we have put up with the consequences, whether they were good or bad actions that we had done. Things we needed to know once we had done those actions were often learned and seldomely taken into heart or mind. But I do tell you this, I learned from my latest relationship that true love can happen when you live a relationship to its fullest, as though there is no other person who could ever take your loved ones place, or that you would do anything just to be with this loved one. I do know, after several arguments, and fights, and periods of forgiveness that our love grew somewhat stronger with each time that we apologized for what mistakes or errors we made, and that moving on rather than dwelling on that problem helped our feelings grow.
But as my senior year of school started, thus did another great soccer season. Unlike most of the guys on my team I was in fairly good condition to begin the season with. I had to ride a bike to practice, and my girlfriend and I did a lot of running around to also help prepare me for conditioning. But I won?t worry too much about going into detail about what I did during the beginning of the school year, other than driving home for a snack, and then driving to practice. I was the only guy on the team to have brought a date to almost every single soccer practice and or game.
My soccer career went very well that year. I played with all my heart and gave every game all my effort. With that in mind I played very well in every single game. I started every game with my mind in a different world, but as the minutes passed by, I became more and more aware of my surroundings and played even harder. I played with both friends and foe. A few people from the previous season no longer were hated by me, instead we were friends at the SUS Senior Classic all-star soccer game.