Wesley Dominguez

Professor Hoehne

Fairy Tales and Rewritings

12 September 2019

Self-doubt

Writing has always been a weakness of mine, yet it is something that I always have to face. In high school I barely had to write papers, which I thought was great until I started applying to college. When it came time to write my personal statement I was completely stuck. I thought to myself, “What am I going to write? How could they choose to judge me off of my personal statement?” I was consumed by my thoughts that my writing was not going to be at the level I needed it to be in order to write a personal statement. Especially because this personal statement had to be good enough for me to be accepted into a college.

I thought about possible topics to write about for days. Some of the ones I had in mind were a story about my experience playing hockey or my interest in animals. I eventually decided to pick something more specific, something that was affecting my life the most at that moment. I ended up picking my story about convincing my mother to let me own a dog. It was a topic that was relevant and I knew what I wanted to say and tell the reader. I remember coming home from my summer job and telling my mom, “We need a dog,” and then listing all the benefits of getting one. Those thoughts and conversations about a dog would be what I would write in my personal statement. However, when I sat in front of my laptop and opened Google Docs all I was able to type was a header. I stared at the blank document for a long time, time could not have gone any slower. It reminded me of an episode of Spongebob when he is trying to write a paper as well and sits staring at the page for hours.

“How do I get started, how do you even spell this word?” After so many questions and wondering how to put my thoughts into words, I finally had my story written down. It took me four hours and I still kept rereading it a million times. I did not feel satisfied, I edited it and kept finding errors. I have never been good with grammar, specifically spelling. My thoughts always led back to, “This is not a good enough paper.” I finally decided to ask my sister to read it and tell me what she thinks about it. She offered some tips and reassured me that it was better than I thought it was. I hesitated while submitting the personal statement to the colleges I wanted to apply to. I was feeling nervous but now it was up to those colleges to decide if it was good enough to be accepted. 

After taking so long to get started and then rereading and editing my personal statement a bunch of times, I was able to get it done. I realized that writing will always be tough for me but I can get it done if I put my mind to it and ask for help when needed. Eventually I heard back from a few colleges and it was a reassuring feeling of success. There was a weight lifted off of my shoulders as I sighed in relief that I had been accepted into college. All that time I spent doubting myself was not worth it, I guess self-doubt pushed me to get it done the best that I could.

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