Ava Harry

Ms. Price

Honors English II

November 4, 2018

Coming of Age Story

Imagine it, being on your own, it’s a scary thought. Everyone has a point in their life

where they must accept more responsibility and become more independent. The time when i

realized this happened fairly recently, it happened when my sister, who is also my best friend,

moved away to college, and since she was my only sibling, it was now only my parents and I

living at home. Now this may not seem like a big deal, almost everyone who has older siblings

goes through this at some point in time, but for me it was different. My sister and I did

everything together, she was the first one I called if I needed help, and she truly was my best

friend, so not only was I the only kid at home, my life long friend had moved away.

It was a typical summer morning, I woke up at noon then proceeded to lay in bed and

watch netflix, and all was right with the world.

My mom comes in saying, “Time to get up, you can’t sleep the day away”.

“I’ll be down in a minute” I say, even though we both knew it would be another half an

hour. But finally, after I contemplate all my reasons to keep sleeping, I roll out of bed and go

downstairs to see the rest of my family.

I come to learn that my sister has been out shopping all morning. I go to the front living

room to see what she has bought and to my surprise I find piles of organizational containers
along with bedding and sheets. This was the moment that it truly hit me, she had been out

shopping for her dorm room because in just a few months, she would be moving out of our

house.

I tried to continue on with my day, no matter how much I want to just sit and think about

my sister leaving.As time passed I began to accept the idea that my sister would be leaving and

after a few weeks it was at the back of my mind. Until the day came, the one dreaded day, the

one where she left. While moving her in was hard, it never truly hit me for a few weeks.

I woke up one morning planning to spend it just like every other morning over the

summer, laying in bed and watching netflix, but I guess my mom had other ideas. She came into

my room asking me to get up, but for real this time. I had a list of chores that took up four post-it

notes, the list contained my usual chores, plus my sisters, and many more that I had no idea

where they were from. I slowly worked my way down the list stopping occasionally for one

reason or another and when the day came to an end I still was not done. After a few days I caught

up on everything I needed to do but that would not last long. Over summer, I could easily

balance my new responsibilities with other events in my life, but when school started a few days

later that all changed.

By about the third week of school I was starting to struggle. One day, after having a

rough day at school and receiving three hours worth of homework I came home and got ready for

practice just like usual. Then, after a practice that seemed to have taken forever I returned home

to get started on my mountain of work, but then I remembered, I had a never ending list of

chores to do that I had been continuously putting off. To avoid getting yelled at by my mom, I

did my chores first, and when I was done, the clock read 11:00 and of course, I started to panic.
Determined to get everything done I started on my home work and told myself I would not close

an eye until all of it was done, but as we all know, things never turn out the way you plan. I woke

up the next morning to the sound of my screeching alarm and I began to panic all over again, I

had fallen asleep in the middle of my homework. I soon learned I could not juggle school work,

practice, and my at home responsibilities if I continued to waste my time on pointless things.

After accepting late grades on half my assignments I had to work even harder and have even

more late nights to bring my grades back up to an acceptable number.

After many false starts and trial and error situations I struck a balance. If I truly got all

distractions out of the way and got my work done in a reasonable amount of time I would even

have time to spare at the end of the day. I learned to work hard for what's really important, I

easily could have brushed over chores and skipped homework assignments but instead I accepted

the challenge and learned to be more responsible.