The Things They Carried Mimicry EssayHigh school junior Belle Sauer carried her favorite books, Howl’s Moving Castle and In Cold Blood. The books would occasionally get bent in her bag, although Belle tried hard to take good care of them. During lunch, or after school, she would open them and read them, again and again. Her mind would drift away and she’d imagine herself talking to a fire demon. The things she carried were largely determined by how bad she needed them. Some things she didn’t necessarily need but still liked to have were gum packets, candy bars, packets of strawberry water sweetener, candy, and a water bottle, if she felt like it. Her friend Sierra Johnson, who had a small backpack, only carried small but important things. Things almost everyone carried were cell phones. If you were to check in almost anyone’s pocket, you would most likely find a phone, all with their own memories and different cases. They would look at them frequently, even when they were not supposed to. They loved to see which one of their friends liked their selfie or saw their Snapchat. As a student in AP classes, Belle Sauer carried her AP Lang books and her AP Stats books, pages marked with sticky notes. She carried a calculator and a large amount of procrastination.
As a choir student, Belle carried around music sheets, music notes, and music worksheets. She carried around music itself, in her mind, for she could never stop singing or humming a song. On the first day of school, before Belle’s happiness died, she carried a planner, and a hope for the year. She felt like she could do good this year – unfortunately her dreams were crushed.She carried her Lang binder, her Stats notebook and folder, her choir folder, her Spanish binder, her ceramics notebook, and an intense hatred for procrastination. She carried her immense teenage emotions, one of those emotions and feeling being self-hate. She carried her large black backpack, full of papers and folders and books, and she always carried her chapstick, which she always needed. She carried herself around even, on the days when she wanted to give up, she kept on going.
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As an everyday child, Belle’s life was so full of life. It was almost as if she had survived the day she thought she couldn’t anymore, a life that she had forgotten about, so she could feel alive again. She did have a very normal day-to-day life, though. Every once in a while, she found herself being driven around by thoughts of death—at night she was in her room reading or at work, her family was at work, she felt like, “Ah well, here I am, now I’m going out with my little girl.” Sometimes she was like that, she didn’t really know who she was, she just felt like there was something wrong with the world. She didn’t think she would get past it. As a kid, it might have been one of my problems that she was always saying she’d find out she was a girl when they got out of the house. But, I am only one person; to be honest, I don’t feel that way at that age. I still like to think of kids like I am, even though I think they’re kids with their own problems. I love to think of them, and we all love being kids, but I think at eighteen, and I’m eighteen right now, I feel like I’m going to have to make some changes because I am going to lose all control, I’m going to have to lose the whole relationship with myself and my friends.I felt all this desperation, that was all I needed… I felt so abandoned and confused and overwhelmed by everything else and it made my life hard, and my family’s lives difficult. I’m not really a person who always takes time to look at things that others see and look at my situation, but I just feel like I couldn’t find it. I needed something. I was just going to keep feeling like I was in a bad mood. Then, one day, I found out that I had cancer, so I had to start looking into it. In the meantime, my dad was on his way home to see my parents. He was going to see the doctors to make sure I got better, that I didn’t have to do this, that maybe I had other feelings. I was so sad because I wasn’t doing anything to help the family financially. And I found out that it was due to the fact that I didn’t want to play music anymore. I found out that I was going to move back to San Pedro for a few months, because nobody would care about my family anymore. I looked at the world and didn’t know what to do, even though I still had a lot of pride in San Pedro. I was happy. It only just made me really worried. A huge reason why there is so much confusion for what to do now is that most music still just doesn’t play. Even in my high school days with my friends, people would say to me that I was only playing the piano and it just wasn’t right because you never play guitar. I still feel bad that I did this when I was 12 years old. I felt very desperate that the world was changing but, really, what was my parents telling me? What is it they thought if their son was gonna get sick, their brother was gonna die, and they wanted
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As an everyday child, Belle’s life was so full of life. It was almost as if she had survived the day she thought she couldn’t anymore, a life that she had forgotten about, so she could feel alive again. She did have a very normal day-to-day life, though. Every once in a while, she found herself being driven around by thoughts of death—at night she was in her room reading or at work, her family was at work, she felt like, “Ah well, here I am, now I’m going out with my little girl.” Sometimes she was like that, she didn’t really know who she was, she just felt like there was something wrong with the world. She didn’t think she would get past it. As a kid, it might have been one of my problems that she was always saying she’d find out she was a girl when they got out of the house. But, I am only one person; to be honest, I don’t feel that way at that age. I still like to think of kids like I am, even though I think they’re kids with their own problems. I love to think of them, and we all love being kids, but I think at eighteen, and I’m eighteen right now, I feel like I’m going to have to make some changes because I am going to lose all control, I’m going to have to lose the whole relationship with myself and my friends.I felt all this desperation, that was all I needed… I felt so abandoned and confused and overwhelmed by everything else and it made my life hard, and my family’s lives difficult. I’m not really a person who always takes time to look at things that others see and look at my situation, but I just feel like I couldn’t find it. I needed something. I was just going to keep feeling like I was in a bad mood. Then, one day, I found out that I had cancer, so I had to start looking into it. In the meantime, my dad was on his way home to see my parents. He was going to see the doctors to make sure I got better, that I didn’t have to do this, that maybe I had other feelings. I was so sad because I wasn’t doing anything to help the family financially. And I found out that it was due to the fact that I didn’t want to play music anymore. I found out that I was going to move back to San Pedro for a few months, because nobody would care about my family anymore. I looked at the world and didn’t know what to do, even though I still had a lot of pride in San Pedro. I was happy. It only just made me really worried. A huge reason why there is so much confusion for what to do now is that most music still just doesn’t play. Even in my high school days with my friends, people would say to me that I was only playing the piano and it just wasn’t right because you never play guitar. I still feel bad that I did this when I was 12 years old. I felt very desperate that the world was changing but, really, what was my parents telling me? What is it they thought if their son was gonna get sick, their brother was gonna die, and they wanted
{3}
As an everyday child, Belle’s life was so full of life. It was almost as if she had survived the day she thought she couldn’t anymore, a life that she had forgotten about, so she could feel alive again. She did have a very normal day-to-day life, though. Every once in a while, she found herself being driven around by thoughts of death—at night she was in her room reading or at work, her family was at work, she felt like, “Ah well, here I am, now I’m going out with my little girl.” Sometimes she was like that, she didn’t really know who she was, she just felt like there was something wrong with the world. She didn’t think she would get past it. As a kid, it might have been one of my problems that she was always saying she’d find out she was a girl when they got out of the house. But, I am only one person; to be honest, I don’t feel that way at that age. I still like to think of kids like I am, even though I think they’re kids with their own problems. I love to think of them, and we all love being kids, but I think at eighteen, and I’m eighteen right now, I feel like I’m going to have to make some changes because I am going to lose all control, I’m going to have to lose the whole relationship with myself and my friends.I felt all this desperation, that was all I needed… I felt so abandoned and confused and overwhelmed by everything else and it made my life hard, and my family’s lives difficult. I’m not really a person who always takes time to look at things that others see and look at my situation, but I just feel like I couldn’t find it. I needed something. I was just going to keep feeling like I was in a bad mood. Then, one day, I found out that I had cancer, so I had to start looking into it. In the meantime, my dad was on his way home to see my parents. He was going to see the doctors to make sure I got better, that I didn’t have to do this, that maybe I had other feelings. I was so sad because I wasn’t doing anything to help the family financially. And I found out that it was due to the fact that I didn’t want to play music anymore. I found out that I was going to move back to San Pedro for a few months, because nobody would care about my family anymore. I looked at the world and didn’t know what to do, even though I still had a lot of pride in San Pedro. I was happy. It only just made me really worried. A huge reason why there is so much confusion for what to do now is that most music still just doesn’t play. Even in my high school days with my friends, people would say to me that I was only playing the piano and it just wasn’t right because you never play guitar. I still feel bad that I did this when I was 12 years old. I felt very desperate that the world was changing but, really, what was my parents telling me? What is it they thought if their son was gonna get sick, their brother was gonna die, and they wanted