critical life event

for my psychology class i'm supposed to write a five page paper about a critical life event. so what i'm doing now, since the paper isn't due for a few weeks, is just summarizing a list of possibilities. but i still think this is a really strange assignment, well maybe not for some of the older people in my class. because i do take night classes, there are very different walks of life that enter. there's the typical college student, aka me the newly graduated freshman, and then there's the people who have been in college a few years because they keep changing their major, the single mom's who are coming back to school to get a better job to raise their children better, and then the older people just getting a degree to get a raise in their current job. anyways, there are lots of very interesting people there. and its always an entertaining class to listen to, even if i'm not really learning anything, i know that there is always something interesting to hear. but perhaps because it is so interesting that is why we don't really get through the curriculum, and thats why i only got a C on my last test. but oh wells.

anyways, the point i was attempting to make is that i feel as if i'm too young to have had a critical life event, but now, upon reflection, i have discovered that maybe i have had a lot of different critical life events that have led me to be where i am today. and yet, i don't know what to write about. I don't know what to say, because i'm almost afraid to admit to myself exactly what has made me the person i am. i don't know which event has even affected me the most.

so now i reminisce. now i go back. now i re-read my journal. now i figure out who i was.

now i look back and see how lost i was. now i go back and see how miserable i was. how awful life was because it was full of lies, deceits, transgressions, and sadness. its horrible. i don't know how i lived like that for so long. but was it really that long? i hardly seem old enough to say that it was a long time, i haven't even existed for a long time. as the residents say at work i'm still such a "spring chicken" and yet, it seems long enough. long enough to know i don't want that ever again.

but the question still remains, what part of my life has affected me the most? and what can i write about for 5 pages?! was it when i was that young sweet innocent 6th grade girl who ran across scandalous images on a computer in the dark? was it when i read that silly book from the library? was it when i tried fitting in by involving myself in vulgar conversations with friends? was it when i decided my friends meant more to me than my family? was it when i thought i loved a boy? was it when that boy broke my heart? was it when i thought i was pregnant? was it when i was in such a deep depression that i stopped caring for anything or anyone but myself? was it when i started shoplifting? was it when i stopped believing in god? was it when i realized i was wrong but didn't try hard enough to change? was it when i had my privacy taken away from me? was it when i was caught in my lies? was it when i graduated and felt like i could start over? was it when i met a boy who showed me the light? was it when i realized i wasn't too far gone? was it when i confessed? was it when i fell in real love? was it when i had the spirit back in my life? was it when i discovered that we shouldn't be together? was it when i was crying for days but knowing that it was right?

i just don't know... i just don't know... there seems to be a lot to me. that i never realized.