Finalized Draft: The box of flower petals, some lemon yellow, tiger orange, and sky

blue resembling happiness, excitement, and amazing achievements and others darker
like midnight black, blood red, and mud brown, resembling sadness, anger, and pure
frustration, is nothing more than a square box covered in peeling leather and dust. All
of my hard work, my wins, all my losses, all my smiles, all my tears, placed in a box that
can be easily accessed by anyone who wishes to. Jaffna, Sri Lanka is where I was born
but New York City, the Big Apple, and home of the New York Knicks is where I was
raised and where I found my identity, where I encountered the hardships of life
experienced by me and family and friends. From a young age, I faced the reality of life.
Even amid misfortune, I found a path towards the greater good. It began with my dad
passing away in 2014. My mom was forced into single parenthood. Two years later two
of my uncles passed away and in 2019 my grandma followed them. This year my uncle
passed away from the coronavirus. Each of these deaths are represented by one petal
and they allow me to form the flower that defines who I've become through adversity.

As a Christian I loved religion very much, the things my family would say about
God and how he helps people but as I got older the love for Jesus slowly decreased. I
would question myself on why “Jesus” had taken way more from me than he has given
me, he has made life harder every day. There were darker petals in my square box at
the time. My whole family is constantly concerned about MY future and I can’t stop
thinking about the present because I might not have tomorrow to say "I love you" to
them. It’s ironic because as much as I think about my loyalty to Jesus Christ I still clean
the church we attend every week and serve food to everyone attending and do not
receive nor I shall never ask for money. Why do I do it? Well, for my family, I would do
anything for them. Even though after-school activities were minimal for me, I had the
chance to teach my younger brother how to be a better person and be there for his
awards and crying sessions but at the end of the day, it was well worth it to see him
grow and embrace his identity.

During sophomore year is when everything went bad, I wasn’t inspired to learn,
and when I got home I was furious at my little brother constantly and didn’t even
communicate with him at all, I would just stay in my room all day but then one day I
looked at my dresser and on top was my swimming class participation trophy, I was
wondering why I put that up there since I didn’t actually win and I had trophies in the
closet where I came first place then I remembered the trophy reminded me of my best
friend who moved away, he took the class with me and I put it up there to remind myself
of him and then I realized that the reason I put that participation trophy on the shelf
wasn't because of my placement it was because of the memories that were created
during the class and I realized I would never see him again so after that day I look at
that trophy as a reminder to never be this angry and sad ever again, not to my friends
and definitely not to my family. Then after countless amounts of yellow, orange, and
blue petals started to appear and it got brighter from there.