Carolyn Shepard
Effective Writing
Mowery
10 January 2003
People are like snowflakes: they all have the same beginning and the same end, but during their life, no two are exactly alike. Everyone is a combination of his or her instincts and experiences. No matter how many similarities exist between two people, it isn’t possible for any complicated combination to match another. I am no exception. Between my natural personality traits passed down from my parents and my experiences in my 18 years of life thus far, I am nothing short of a unique individual. I am unique because of both my nature and my experience.
On January 22 of 1985, nine days after the coldest day in Chicago history, my mother went into labor shortly after falling asleep. I’ve always had a problem interrupting people. My dad had been warming the car battery in their apartment so he could more efficiently rush her to the hospital if necessary. They arrived at about midnight. Based on my older brother’s 24-hour labor, my mom’s doctor decided to have the attending nurses monitor her until his shift began at 8 the next morning. At 1:17 on the morning of the 23rd, I was ready. No one was in the room except my mom and dad, so it was my dad who actually delivered me. I’ve always gone after what I wanted with no reserves, and I’m not very patient. I guess I’ve been that way from the start.
Between ages one and four, I lived with my mom, dad, brother Luke and my eight teenage psuedo-brothers. Each suffered from a mental disability and needed help taking care of their self. My mom was their house parent; I was raised right in the middle of a lot of action. I like this about my history. I think my parents have instilled strong moral values in me including compassion for others and a passion for social change. I often wish we had never moved. Maybe then I never would have lost my fluency in American Sign Language. I’ve always wanted to take that back up. Living within a community like Misericordia is not something most young children have the opportunity to experience, and that’s part of what makes me unique.
The people I find most similar to me are my siblings. We each have different combinations of traits from our parents—both positive and negative. We all are very similar, and also each have a strong individuality. Like my dad, I’m a visual learner, intellectually curious, have a quirky sense of humor and am a fast-walker. Like my mom, I’m controlling, compassionate, naturally and compulsively organized, and unsatisfied with unsolved conflict. It’s interesting to see how each of us grows uniquely from the same set of genetics.
Since birth I’ve been different from anyone else on the face of the earth. This isn’t because it’s my goal to stray from the norm, but I don’t try to follow the crowd either. The result? I’m becoming who I want to be, my real self. Since no one else has my genetics or experiences, my real self won’t be anything like anyone else. From my paranoia of navels to my affection for pens, no one can say they’re exactly like me. And that makes me proud.