Coming Of Age Essay (Draft)

I sit there in the drivers seat, lifeless and aghast. I was in disbelief. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Everything seemed to go perfectly fine, until I was overwhelmed with fear. I remember those days back in the second grade when my friends and I would look up to the older grades. We were in such a rush to grow up, and anxious to get out of school. Having to take on all my own responsibilities, obey such strict rules, and learning to accept the consequences for my wrongdoing made me realize that what I thought was “tough” or “harsh” punishment when I was put into the corner of the room where I was shunned by my fellow classmates feeling like an outcast during time-out is nothing compared to the intense punishment I go through now.

It was the summer of 2008 when I had my coming of age experience. My cousin and I were supposed to meet up with our friends at A’ala Park because they were at the skate park. My grandma said she’d drop us off after her meeting at Valley of the Temples in Kaneohe. We waited patiently for my grandma in the car and as the minutes went by, the car became torrid from the blazing sun.

I asked my grandma for the keys to the car to turn on the air condition while we waited for her and she willingly gave it to me. My cousin and I were talking about driving, and I told her about how my dad brought me to Sand Island to learn how to drive a stick shift. I was extremely antsy and I wanted to try driving my grandma’s car, thinking that it would be easy because it was an automatic.

I started of with reversing out of the parking stall and forward parking. We were both laughing in excitement, and I decided to attempt reverse parking. Being amateur, I decided to avoid anywhere it was possible for me to scratch another car. I gave up after my first attempt, and it was hard for me to turn back to the parking stall. So I decided to drive around the building back to the parking stall.

I drove slowly up the hill towards the little red booth in the middle of the road where there was a person there to greet you after the speed bumps. I was extremely focused on the road until something broke my concentration. A white car was coming down the hill and as I looked back on the road, I saw that my car was turning left towards the other car. I over reacted and turned the steering wheel making the car jerk to the right. Within a matter of seconds, the car went onto the grass as we were bouncing uneasily in our seats and I slammed the break before I ran over someone’s grave.

I paused for a while. I couldn’t believe what happened. I was relieved and extremely lucky that no one got hurt. Meticulously, I reversed the car back onto the road and asked my cousin to check if I scratched the car. When I saw the look on her face, I immediately knew I was in deep trouble. As my grandma made her way towards us, I kept the passenger’s door wide open to hide the scratch from her. I decided to think of a way to tell my grandma about what I’ve done on the drive back into Kalihi, but things didn’t go as planned.

As we were pulling out of the parking lot, my other grandma came around the car to the driver’s side. My grandma rolled down her window and her sister inquisitively asked about the scratch on the passenger door, concerned about my grandma being in an accident. That was when I finally confessed about what happened, and my grandma didn’t talk to me the whole time on our drive back home. My dad grounded me for such a long time, and many privileges were taken away from me.

There are so many things that I’ve done in the past that I would love to fix. But no one is perfect, and I’ve learned that things you’ve done in the past really does affect you in the future. It may not happen as fast as you would expect it to, but it could happen within years from then. Now, I’ve become more deliberate and put more thought into the possible outcomes and consequences of something I’m planning on doing before I actually do it.