Blog Post #2

My absolute favorite thing without a doubt that we've discussed was the Andre Gomez "Fear" reading. Although maybe I don't directly relate to this story, I do over think everything and have minor panic attacks from time to time. It really put things into perspective and that life can be much much harder and that there is always someone in the world going through something harder than me or you. I enjoyed the incredibly intricate detail that he was able to illustrate in my mind. I consider myself a visual person, so having an excellent author like Gomez is a treat and I genuinely enjoyed every sentence within the text and pulled me in. If there is anything that I could relate to directly, it would be the fear of losing another parent. I lost one when I was five and growing up once I was finally old enough to realize that my life was slightly different than some other kids, but certainly not different compared to all other kids, I always did fear losing my mom. I have no other family in Idaho  as well as no close relatives whatsoever and because of that, I knew that if something happened to my mom I would be left in a really tough position and possibly not make anything of my life whatsoever. With those two fears in mind I would always pray and even if she wasn't home in time I genuinely would worry if she was more than 15 minutes late and would overthink the situation and ultimately start panicking for no reason (when I was still young). It wasn't until college when I truly realized that without my mom I would probably be somewhere, doing something, living a life that I would hate and because of that I'm extraordinarily privileged. I'm proud of where I came from even though I don't usually tell people too often unless they directly ask me about my childhood or what my experience was growing up, which is asked maybe once a year. I also related to the article because I played basketball in high school and a few years before that as well. And no, I wasn't the stereotypical douchebag jock because I didn't have to be, there was enough of them. I used basketball as a way to cope with my anger, frustration, confusion, as well as when times were good. I guess that's why I became halfway decent at basketball haha. I specifically relate to anger and dealing with it because Gomez and I both played basketball and would dunk the ball as hard as possible to alleviate our anger. I think that's why I appreciated his reading so much. Myself, like many others, enjoy hearing similar stories about similar situations and relating to one another that way. I think that's how relationships are formed and how additional external happiness is found as well. I hate reading and I never wanted Gomez's works to end. I remember a deep sense of fulfillment that I experienced when I was completely done reading and was shocked by this. It's not that I hate reading, it's a matter of finding something that I enjoy reading and then if i accomplish that I learned that I love reading.