A Painful Moment - My First Day of School
I looked through my fingers, which I had spread across my eyes so I would not see what was before me. I closed the crack of my hands so I could only see darkness. I was five years old, covering my eyes with hands that smelled like sweat and plastic, from clutching my lunchbox with such ferocity, before I had to put my lunchbox away in my new cubbyhole. I was suffering through the first day of kindergarten. I did not want to look at my fellow students. I was sitting on a small, hard, uncomfortable chair at a tiny table in the back of the class. It was the first day that I had ever been separated so long from my parents and my home. The classroom smelled like modeling clay and newly waxed floors. It was filled with bright pictures of the alphabet and colors. But these pictures seemed sad to me, because I was away from the familiar surroundings of my room. I was trying to pretend that I wasn't in the room, but far away in a more comfortable place.The teacher was talking. I heard her voice say things as if she were far away, speaking in a tunnel. She said she hoped everyone enjoyed their time in their new school, and that we were expected to be quiet and learn. She was a soft, gentle looking woman with long, curly hair.
Some of the girls linked their pinkies, to show that they were best friends. At the time, I felt different from everyone else, as if my clothes, my shyness, and my awkwardness would never go away-as if everyone else was not experiencing their first day of school, only me. For the first time, everything in my life had changed, all at once-my parents were gone, my friends were nowhere to be seen. After we had made our name tags, we had to stand and introduce ourselves. I had no one to whisper to, or look to as a protector. Nothing was familiar, and the hours that I would have to spend away from home seemed like torture. But in this alien environment, I did not feel secure. Later in life, I would have happy memories at school, but I did not know that on my first day of kindergarten. I felt my voice rasp harsh against my throat, and I barely recognized my voice as I spoke. I couldn't concentrate on anything. Some of them were already friends, because they had gone to the same nursery school, or because they came from the same neighborhood. Everyone else, I saw, was wearing sneakers. I was surrounded by strangers telling me to do things I did not want to do, strangers I knew I had to obey. The teacher passed out construction paper and told us to come to the front of the classroom to get crayons, so that we could make name tags for ourselves.
Common topics in this essay:
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day kindergarten,
little hand,
name tags,
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