Getting Past It

             Unlike most people, I haven’t really faced many difficult things in my life that I had to overcome. I haven’t had a tragic death in the family, gone through a parents’ divorce, or anything along those lines. But, I have had to face a major fear in my life. When I was younger, about 8 years old, I was scared to death of dogs. When I would go over a friend’s house, I would force them to put the dog outside or lock it in a room. If I was taking a walk around my neighborhood and saw a dog, I would start bawling and run the opposite direction, scared to death. I can’t even explain how afraid I was.

It got to the point where it became a big problem and inconvenience. To hopefully get myself over this fear of mine, my dad came home one day after school with a golden retriever puppy sitting in my driveway. At first I was scared of course, but I ended up petting it with caution. The first week with the dog was awful. I would sit at the kitchen table with my feet up because I thought he was going to bite my toes off. Surprisingly, the dog slowly started to have a huge impact on myself. I realized that I loved my dog, and day by day I got used to him. My twin sister had the same fear, and while I started to love him, she continued to hate him and made my dad give him away. I remember crying all night for him back, holding his heart name tag tightly. We ended up going back the next day and taking him back, and he was the most important thing to me ever since. My life was changed, and my fear was gone, just by being strong and getting past it.

                Now, how does this relate to the difficulties I will face in college? I have a fear that I will never figure out what I want to do with my life, or what major I will end up in. I know this is going to take a lot to work myself away from this fear, but it’ll take time. I just have to have an open mind, like the dog, and I will find myself in a better place.