Connections by Joshua

Connections by Joshua - March 2017 Scholarship Essay

One of the greatest mechanisms that we as people have established is communication. Be it a wink, a whispered word, a text on your phone, or brail on a restroom sign – communication intrinsically permeates our day-to-day lives. Without it we would not know how to tell the difference between a house or a car, nor would we manage to advance as we have. However, the complexity of communication strays beyond pure utility and more often than not expresses our emotions. Parents say I love you to their children and friends laugh at each other. In school, our communication allows us to create relationships, though that first step in communication is often the hardest.
When I was a child my parents enrolled me in private school until fourth grade. Then I transitioned to public school. It was an incredible schism that punched me square in the chest, leaving me breathless to say the least. There were new faces, new names, and niches I bore no hope of entering. My peers never saw me before and seemed quite uninterested in clearing up that mystery. Instead, I kept to myself and did my school work. I made no friends, but I hardly minded any of it.
When we wrote acrostic poems (those “name poems”) I always used the first “s” in my name for shy. I would rather fill my throat with cement than talk to someone. I suppose a mixture of timidity and disinterest towards others was to blame; yet, even through middle school I felt wholly alone, with my only real friends being my parents. This loneliness was not apparent to me until I reached high school.
By some way of a cruel miracle my home was on the border of Auburn Mountainview High School. So while everyone else from my middle school left for Auburn High, I got on a bus brimming with new faces (yet again). Everyone in my classes was a stranger that made my nerves shake and palms sweaty. The process started over again, I was a snail retreating into their shell with little more to occupy me than my studies.
I am sure countless teens, kids, and people alike experience or have experienced this loneliness. They know how fast your heart can go before you stand up to present before an entire class. Kids finish their lunch as fast as they can on the floor so they can go to the library and be in silence. Yes, there is undoubtedly a good amount of us who recall these experiences. To be alone is not a completely terrible thing, but it can elicit sadness. It is this sadness that clouds our purpose in life, our focus to study, and so forth.
It was also in high school that this sadness, and my shyness in general, ended. I blame extracurricular activities for this development. When I started my freshmen year my dad put me in water polo, one of the most intense sports ever conceived. Shouting was how we talked in that sport and it took me a while to join the conversation. However, one day in particular I remember an exercise in which we had to shout to one another to pass the ball. I failed to yell loud enough, of course, and he refused to let me pass until my voice was heard. It took a few tries and a lot of courage to push out the rock in my throat, but I managed it somehow and by the end of practice I was louder, if only slightly so.
Nevertheless, that was the first step in numerous that would help my social skills mature, be it with friends or strangers. It is incredibly hard to begin that link of communication; it took me most of my K-12 career to even mutter the first word. It may take a sport or a club, or a hobby to help break up the silence we surround ourselves with. However, where there is perseverance the sincerity to connect with others, there is always a means by which to achieve a connection.