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Peter Lobo English 112 Section 71 February 27, 2007

                                                              Finding Yourself

“Identity: the collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is definitively recognizable or known”. (Identity 2.0 .com) I feel however, that identity is a little more than that; identity is the character built within the individual, shaped by the things that happen to them within their own timeline. All my life, I have been a rather impatient person; as I have grown older, it is something I have come to accept. As a young boy I loved to play in the woods, and once, when a bunch of friends and I went hiking, I was too impatient to wait for the adult to lead the way. As a result of my haste, I ended up sitting in a very deep mud pit for hours until I was pulled out with a rope by the police. I cried and cried that day, and not even my mother could fully comfort because she had heard that I ran ahead of the group.

Another classic example of my impatience coming around to nip me in the rear was Christmas Eve when I was only six years old. I had been exceptionally excited in the days prior to that night, because I had a strong feeling that I was going to get the bike that I had asked for over and over. I had finished with all the Christmas Eve preparations: eating dinner, bathing up, putting on my lame Christmas full body pajamas, and finally leaving cookies and milk for Santa. When bed time came, I hatched the brilliant idea of fake sleeping and seeing what Santa had brought me as soon as I could. My parents checked my brothers and me and were convinced we were all sleeping; from there I waited a little and snuck out of bed and into the doorway of the living room. To my shock I saw my parents pulling all kinds of presents out of their closet, including the bike that I had hoped for. When I woke up the next morning, the thrill of the bike could not even shake my dismal mood, because I had found out the hard way, at only six years old, that there was no Santa Clause.

Although my impatience ruined Christmas for awhile in this instance, my impatience culminated and somewhat helped me out, when my family announced we were going on a trip to New Hampshire when I was eight. Being a southern child, I had never even really seen the mountains or snow before, so I was very excited when we arrived at Bretton Woods, a ski resort in Jackson, New Hampshire. There was easily a good two feet of snow on the ground with plenty more dumping all over the mountain. My brothers and I were put in a half day lesson, and we were told that our parents would be able to visit us and ski with us after we had learned the basics. After a long process of fitting, trying things on, and drinking hot chocolate to warm up, I was finally ready to go out on to the bunny slope, a trail made for beginners, and learn to ski. The group I was in, was taught the basics: make a pizza shape with your skis when you want to stop, make two French fries when you want to speed up. In my mind I was a pro, and obviously better than everyone else in the group; which probably was an unlikely scenario. I caught on quick, and throughout the day, my father would stop by and check in. In my eyes it seemed as though he was throwing in my face the fact that while I was on this little hill, he was exploring and speeding through the vast area that was the mountain. As the feeling of antagonism grew, I no longer wanted to ski with the strange faces I saw around me. I grew quite bored of pizza and French fries. I realized that we were being tricked. The little chairlift that we kept riding up to the top of the bunny trail was only a couple feet long. I thought of how this trail was no place for a good skier like myself to be held. I should be up on the top of the mountain. I pleaded with the ski instructor to take us all the way up, but he was stubborn, and assured me that the group was not ready for that as this was a first time for most of us. What did he know anyway.

As the lesson came to a close, I felt like I had improved a lot and was ready for any trail on the mountain. I was eager to ask my parents to take me on the “big mountain” as I called it, so that I could demonstrate my skills. They of course said no, since I had never skied before. They reasoned that we would be here all week and that I would have plenty of time to learn so that I could go to the top another day. Their excuses did not satisfy my appetite for the “big mountain” one bit. This only made me more upset, and I fell on the last resort for any child, I started to cry. My parents are very stern, and crying almost never worked for me, in fact it would only get me into more trouble nine out of ten times. Somehow, the crying game worked for me that time, and they agreed that if I skied well enough on the bunny slope in front of them, that my dad would take me to the top of the mountain. My performance on the bunny slope was mediocre, and left my parents still skeptical to say the least. I began to plead with them once again, and my efforts once again worked strangely. To this day, I am still not sure if my dad brought me up to the top of the mountain as punishment, or because he actually believed that I was ready to go on the tougher trails. At eight years old however, I was a legend in my own mind and had no doubt to the fact that I was ready.

The chairlift ride to the top, which seemed to take hours, excited me and even built butterflies in my stomach. That was probably one of the happier times in my life. When we got off I immediately noticed how steep this part of the mountain was, compared to what I had been used to. I actually started to regret even wanting to come up that high. My dad started to ski and I followed him, cautiously, using the previously hated french fry technique for the majority of my short trip. I must have made it no more than one hundred feet when i finally fell and began to tumble. I rolled for a few feet and then heard a fierce SNAP!

As I glided down the trail in a stretcher, gazing at the sky, I realized right then and there what had happened in order to cause this pain. I was brought to the hospital and X-rayed, and it was confirmed that I had broken my leg. I looked at the wall with the picture of my skeleton, looked at the doctor in front of me starting to wrap my leg, I began to feel immense pain once again and then I began to understand the situation. I had caused this problem on myself. I flashed back to when I was stuck in the mud, and when I ruined Santa Clause for myself. I then realized who I was. An eight year old child sitting in a hospital room in excrutiating pain, and more over a very impatient person in general.