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Coming Of Age: A Short Story

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Most of the time, becoming an adult is planned. There are religious ceremonies, the gaining of a driver’s license, and other forms of new responsibility to signify the coming of age. Sometimes though maturity comes at you like a freight train. It comes at you in the blink of an eye and there is no stopping it once it hits you. You are forced to grow up and take on new responsibilities that you thought you wouldn’t have to take on until many years later. It's up to you though to decide what to do from there. You can either try and run away from the problems you have come to face or you can take the train head on and conquer what has been presented to you. I decided to face the train. It quickly came at me when I was in seventh grade. A sharp pang hit my heart and chilled my bones when my father told me the news. My mother was sick. And not just a common cold where you take some medicine to make you feel better. No, she was in pain, throwing up blood and feeling faint. She was rushed to the hospital with IVs pumping a disgusting yellow liquid into her …show more content…

For me though, this was not the case. I could not wake up because I was already awake. I was facing reality. A dangerous freight train that doesn't give you any time to escape. It is something you just have to tightly embrace with the hope that you don't fall off. Getting a firm grip on it was tough at first. There was a mound of responsibilities that I took on, not because I was necessarily forced to, but because it felt like it was the right thing to do. My father and sister both had jobs and other obligations that they had to tend to while I was just a child. Someone with no responsibilities other than living out their youth. No one expected much from me, but I expected much from myself. I knew I could handle the pressure and I wasn't about to let my nightmare stop

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