Literary Arts Magazine Spring 2024 Vol. 14 Carlos Rosario IPCS Magazine | Página 60

In this essay , I would like to talk about one experience in my life . Some people judge others by their appearance , language , religion , politics , etc . A few years ago something happened to my health . One day , I woke up , I looked in the mirror and I had white spots on my skin . I was scared when I saw my skin was different . I remember I didn ’ t know what to do at that moment . I just asked myself why that had happened to me , why me ? Just looked for answers , but I didn ’ t know who to ask about it . I didn ’ t want to leave the house because of the fear of thinking what people were going to say at that moment . I didn ’ t want to go to work either . I also stopped going to school and playing basketball . Many people I considered my friends stopped talking to me because of my new physical appearance .
My brother told me to go to the hospital , but I didn ’ t have health insurance and if I went it would have been very expensive for me . I made a big mistake by not going to the doctor . I let that problem go , and I thought everything was going to be fine , but things got worse . After one year , the spots on my skin grew a little more , and then I started looking for help because that was no longer normal .
I was afraid of losing my job and my friends even though no one ever disrespected me . I felt desperate but after several days and months of loneliness , sadness , suffering , I got a new job . There , I met a person who changed my life for the better . She dedicated a lot of her time to understand me . Thanks to her , I got my health insurance . I also went to the psychologist . Going to the psychologist changed my life because the psychologist told me many things about life , about the value of people , the value of myself , and she helped me gain my confidence back . Thanks to the help of some people like my friend Korina , Marilyn and the help of the psychologist , I returned to doing many things that I like . One of the most important things was returning to school but also returning to work , playing sports , riding a bike , going out with friends , and visiting my family . I am a person who likes to improve myself and learn new things every day . A great goal I accomplished was that my boss gave me the opportunity to improve myself and offered me a promotion at work . Some coworkers asked , “ Why you ?” I don ’ t have the experience but I have shown them that I can do many things . I am thankful to my boss for the opportunity .
I thank God , life , my friends who were with me during difficult times , and also my family for not leaving me alone . Now I ’ m going back to English classes and I would like to finish school . After finishing ESL 8 , I would like to enroll in Culinary Arts and get my certificate so I can have better job opportunities . Learning this new language is hard for me . Something that helps me learn faster is speaking with native speakers of English at work . It helps me learn new words and to feel more fluent when I speak with them .
All people are different , we all know that . I have learned that we should not let ourselves be judged by our appearance . We all have the same ability to do anything we set our minds to . Sometimes all we need is to talk about things that happened to us , and we need someone to listen to us .

My Story

By Jose R .
29