The Color of Water Blog Post #3 -- Write-Alike

In this scene, the main character is on the bus to Oberlin College. As a teen, he never attended school and spent all day smoking pot and drinking with his buddies at the corner store. But his mom is incredibly proud of him for turning his life around. She walks with him to the bus stop, and as the bus is pulling away he sees her break down in tears, letting it all out as she was trying to keep it together for him. It made him realize how much he had come in the past few years, and how he made himself into the person that he wanted to be, not the person he was trying to hide from himself in shame. This scene reminds me of a time in my own life when I had to work hard to make myself who I wanted to be again. I had been skipping school, out of total anxious fear and being worried of embarrassing myself in front of everyone. I realized one day that spending my life like this would get me nowhere, and pushed myself to do things I was terrified to do, going to school included.  My mom was also incredibly proud of me, and began to cry out of relief when I started to go to school again. It made me feel proud, because my mom is my pride and joy and I realized that I had been hurting her by skipping as much as I was hurting myself.  The author really made his experiences feel like my own, as they were very similar (mine, however, weren't as serious as his were). His mom was the kind of person he would do anything for, much like my very own mother.  This scene really reminded me of my own life, which made his experiences more real for me as the reader.