Assignment 11 - Ella Franklin

Do the depths of your subconscious count as a fear? Like I'm not terribly afraid of spiders, or snakes, or cracks in the night, but that's kinda classic spooky stuff. I'm scared of really understanding myself and seeing I'm a bad person, or that everything I believe about myself is a mirage and I'm really everything I hate.

Sorry! This may be getting to dark for an English assignment. When I was a kid I used to be terrified of getting kidnapped. This was also in an era where it seemed like a lot of kidnapping cases were being solved. I tried to find an example by googling "solved kidnapping cases 21st century" but the links that came up were like "Most Famous Murders of All Time" and Wikipedia's List of Kidnappings with an excerpt, "The victim was then stabbed in the back and was buried in Eklutna, Alaska," so I'm just not gonna look for an example. I'm sure you know of one. Just go with that. But I was always so scared of cars slowing down on my street or adult men at Toys-R-Us who of course had to be plotting a kidnapping and wasn't just buying a toy for their son. But I've pretty much gotten over that fear now.

During my first couple years of high school I was really scared of getting a B. I thought getting a B would mean not getting into college and going to UK and just getting a job here and never moving away and then getting married and settling down and having a couple kids and repeating my parents' life over. Then Mr. Ratliff gave me a B second semester. A 90 B. At another high school that would be an A, by the way. I was really close to getting a B first semester but I didn't. But something changed in me by second semester. I mean I surely was sad after grades were finalized and I realized my 4.0 would now be a 3.9864. I remember listening to Taylor Swift in the car and crying about it. Like her singing about saying goodbye to a boyfriend is me saying goodbye to my 4.0. But after I got a B it was kinda like, "Yeah, that sucks, but it happened, it's only a B, it's sophomore year, it's only a 90, who cares." It's not like I'm gonna be a chemist anyways.

I think this fear has still kind of persisted into today. I used to be so sure of where I was headed and how my adult life would be, but now it's all kind of up in the air. I worry everyday that I'm not doing enough. I'm the president of two clubs. Kathleen Gibbs calls me "Madame President" when she comes to my clubs. I love that, but in the end, I know I'll never be a Hye Jee or Eliza Jane, so I might just have to settle with being myself.