Personal Essay

Narrative Writing Prompt: The way a person handles disappointment reveals a great deal about what is important to him or her. Tell about a time in your life when you confronted disappointment and how you handled it.

There are many times in my life where I have had to face disappointment. Almost all of these times were petty things or around any holidays that my family and I celebrate, including my birthday. In fact, the one time that I was most disappointed was around my birthday this year. Even though I felt disappointed on my birthday for the past four years, there was something different about this one. It was because this year was the year I turned sixteen.

I know I should have expected to be disappointed on my birthday, but I did not think about it and gave it hope. I have never had a birthday party and so have not my sibling except for one of them when they were two years old, I was not expecting a birthday party though, but at least something different. I mean I was turning sixteen, so I would have least would have thought it would be a little special. The thing is, it was not very special at all except for me getting older.

For my birthday, I had wanted an iPod touch, since I did not get it for Christmas. Instead of getting it on my birthday, my dad gave it to me in January six months prior to my birthday. He did not even have the patience to wait six months. So, along with my early birthday gift my school had planned to go to Six Flags a couple of days after my birthday. I was excited because I had found something to do for my birthday. It turned out that my parents did not want to give me any money for the ticket or for spending money. So, I had to use my early birthday money my Aunt and Granny gave me to pay for the ticket. To top it all off, the school had postponed the trip to the last day of school. So, my whole plan for celebrating my birthday went down the drain.

So, what I ended up getting was an iPod touch to early in advance and a trip to Six Flags that symbolized the end of school and a far too late thing to do for my birthday. I got nothing else besides about a few dollars and birthday cards from my Granny and parent for my birthday. I was, in fact, disappointed on how “special” my sixteenth birthday was (note the sarcasm.) It was in fact one of my blandest birthdays in my life even though an iPod touch is a great gift, just not when  it was give too far in advance.

How did I deal with my disappointment? Well, I went into my room and cried a little because that is what I usually do when something saddens me or is very unfair to me. After that I was a little angry with my parents, but I did not show them that I was. I just avoided the situation and did not worry about it after that day because life is not fair. Stuff like that happened all of the times in other families.