David Nguyen

Lori Bedell

CAS 137H

When people say they came from nothing, it’s usually an inspirational story about

how they were born impoverished and worked their way towards wealth. For this story

though, that is not the case.

I came from nothing. Throughout my childhood, I have known nothing but blue red

and purple. Emptiness, an everlasting void. Fear, darkness, the pain that everyone seeks to

avoid, yet still find them nevertheless. Some may find them earlier than others and when they

do, fall, fall down a dim and nigh irreversible slope. Like a snowball rolling down a hill,

shrouded in shadows and growing in weight, gaining in force and momentum the further

down it goes until it’s nearly unstoppable. Nearly. I believe that there will always be an

offshoot, a path that leads away from the darkness. A chance at redemption. I believe that no

matter what you have been through, you have the capability to do good. Sometimes all it

takes is one act of love.

I had fallen down the slope. A couple of years ago, I was in a fog, looking to all sides

of me but seeing nothing to offer, no one to stand by me. I felt alone, worthless, fighting a

losing battle day after day. I’ve been told that I would never amount to anything and I

believed it. I had breakdown after breakdown, restless nights, panic and anxiety attacks as the

assignments keep piling up yet being too crippled to do them. And the exams keep coming

and they don’t stop coming and they don’t stop coming. It was all too much to bear. I didn’t

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believe that I could make it through it. I had fallen down the slope and I was spiralling. I

pushed everyone away, taking refuge in the ball of shadows, growing in strength and density.

Alone, enveloped in pain and anguish. All it takes though is just one little nudge to

completely change your trajectory. That nudge, came to me in the shape of a friend, who

forced me to go to dinner. We sat in silence for a while, me picking at my food, my stomach

not the only thing feeling empty and lost. My once steaming Pad Thai growing cool to the

touch. Finally, after deciding that the silence was long enough for me to mourn, she had me

spill. Expecting her to run I did. Like an eruption from a volcano, it all came out. But she

didn’t run. She sat there and she listened. Listened to everything I picked up on my tumble

down the slope. All the hurt, rage, and pain that had built up over the past 17 years. I

could’ve been talking for hours or minutes. I was too lost, too wrapped up in the shadows to

have known. Finally, it ended. I was exhausted. I looked down, ashamed. Unable to meet her

eyes and expecting that when I looked up she would be gone and I would’ve lost another

friend. But then I heard something I never expected to hear. “I think you’re very strong” and

thus, the nudge was made. I was accepted for who I was. I was worth something. Despite all

the time I spent on the hill, it didn’t mean I had to stay on it.

I learned to love. To open myself to the world. To be vulnerable. I’ve made people

smile, laugh, I’ve made people feel happy. I did something I thought that I could never do. I

made a difference. I have changed people’s lives, made them better. I’ve become someone

who can say “I think you’re very strong.” I’ve become someone who can be the nudge, to

save people from the tumbling slope. The darkness is still a part of me, and it will always be,

but despite it, I believe that I can still do good. I believe that all it takes for nudge someone

off that slope is one act of love.