Thursday, November 22, 2012

Effect Essay Rewrite

 
My parents got divorced when I was around the age of 8.  Following the divorce I don't think my dad and I spent more than 5 days together, I never needed, wanted or expected anything from him. That's until I turned 17, got my driver's license and wanted a car. This is when I decided to play the dad vs. mom game that all us children of divorce like to do. I decided that this would be a great opportunity to ask my dad for something, considering the fact that he pretty much missed everything of my childhood. I spent the next two weeks talking to my dad pretty much every day and somehow managed to swindle him into buying me a brand new Honda Civic. 

Well I got my car and life was great. I was happy as a clam to be driving around and I felt like I had done the smart thing by sweet talking my dad into buying it for me. However, looking back I know things were not as they seemed, the whole experience changed me. It had a lasting effect on my life because It was the first time I have ever pushed a little too far and manipulated someone into doing something for me. My innocence was gone and I was left with a cold, sorrowful heart because of what I had done in order to get that shiny new car I had wanted so badly. I know that innocence doesn't last too long in this day of age but it saddens me to think that the first person I "used" was my father.

 I feel like having my dad buy me the car and then leaving him emotionally high and dry was something that put a huge strain on our relationship. Granted, our relationship was never anything more than a birthday phone call and cards in the mail every once in a while, but I have the feeling that he had hope for us after all that time I spent talking to him. We have never been able to fix that estranged relationship and in my opinion it is even worse off than it ever was when I was in my youth.

To this day I still feel extreme guilt about the entire car situation. Not only do I feel bad about making my dad feel like he owed me something but I also feel guilty about how I treated him afterwards. I pretty much used him and forgot about him for a long time after. Even though I am proud to say that I have never done that to anyone else it is still something I am not proud of. There is nothing worse than feeling ashamed and unfortunately that is probably the biggest thing holding me back from communicating with my dad.

All in all this I have had to come to terms with what I did. Teenage years are really hard years to navigate and I hope that my parents both expected a little bit of bad decision making. In my book I have to just chalk this up to stupid, selfish, teenage behavior and call it a day. I'm sure that one of my three children will do something of the same sorts to me someday, and that will probably be the day that I truly forgive myself.

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5 comments:

  1. Just want to make sure we're on the same page: I haven't seen a finished process essay from you yet, right?

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  2. This isn't ready yet.

    Interesting topic and material, will work.

    Take a look at graf 1--do you see how you repeat yourself there? How you could split the graf in half and have two separate versions, either of which stands alone, but doubling them really adds nothing. So, rewrite and tighten there.

    I think I see three separate effects but you have to sharpen them in graf 2--there is an effect described but it's buried and graf 2 winds up almost reading like a third intro.

    So, a rewrite of grafs 1 & 2.

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  3. Correct. I haven't published the process essay yet. I will have it in by the 7th, your assignment calender says its ok by then right?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I did a rewrite for this essay, I hope the changes worked. I liked it a lot better.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The 7th is right, though there are no rewrites available after that date.

    This rewrite works very nicely--grafs 1 & 2 sparkle!

    ReplyDelete