Who am I?
I am Ezekiel Starling, only son of Lou and Michele Starling and self-proclaimed Starling prodigy. I was unwillingly pulled from my mother’s womb in the Kaiser hospital of San Francisco on the 15th of October in the year 1994. I am an African American but I am not sure if I am mixed with anything else, my parents never told me if I am and I have never asked. My mother is the eldest of 4 children on her side of the family deemed the Pleasants. My father hails from the family of Starling and is also the oldest of 4 children. Some may see this as confidence but I view it as a sort of destiny, like I was meant to be brought into this world.
I have lived only with my mom since birth. My parents split up when I was a very young so all I remember of the break is a very vague member of me listening to my parents arguing through my cracked open door. Despite never living with him however, my father has always been part life, albeit he has not been as supportive as my mom. My childhood life was a lot different than most peoples, the reason being that I have moved to a new house about every 2 years until I arrived in Pinole. This being the case I became sort of a shut mentally but I was tried to portray a happy upbeat person. I formed a very dark alter ego one could say, and I in turn locked away my true personality. In fact it is fair to say that I did not comfortably develop my true self until I got into high school, the true self that I am proud of and feel blessed to be every day.
So you may ask, what exactly is the kid all about? Well I shall tell you. I am the very definition of an optimist, I always look on the side that will bring others joy because to do otherwise is to invite back a darker me that I would rather not have around anymore. This however does not make me naïve, I know how evil and cold the world can be but I choose to “kill them with kindness” so to speak. I believe that human beings have the potential to do so many positive things in this world and just need to be pushed in the right direction by someone, and that someone is me. I spew confidence and encourage all of my friends to do the same, not to be arrogant, but to inspire those around me to have faith in themselves and their abilities. This pay it forward tactic was incepted into my mind by the very life I grew up in, and it reflects my positive nature. While I may say I act one way however, certain people tend to see me in a different light. What I see as a friendly attitude toward everyone others may perceive as an annoyingly blunt personality that they cannot stand because they are not used to it. So in a sense I am very much misunderstood and rejected by some people. While to others this would be a source of sadness, to me it is simply a motivator to keep pressing on. Others may see me as a hindrance now, but as I continue down the road of confidence and inspiration I can only hope others can see me for the positive person I truly am. So just to clarify, I am not some sort of big shot who believes he is the single most important thing in all of creation, no. I am a boy who believes that the world is full of good and bad, but in the end the good will always ultimately triumph.
My positive eyes, seemingly bright as the sun, have seen their fair share of pain however. In particular I remember my freshmen through sophomore years I had no father. Through an instance that had no control over and was sprung upon me without any type of mercy or forgiveness, my father told me he was going away…for 2 years. I had never really thought about life without my parents, but at the moment he told it suddenly hit me, he was leaving. Up until that point in my life, even though he did not live with me, my father had been my hero. In my mind whenever I thought of him all I thought of was a strong athlete who was always one of the “cool dads”, I was proud to be his son and I wanted to grow up to be just like him. It was a hard reality to face and all I could do was cry, I felt the pain of not having around for the first few weeks of school, and after the sadness I felt anger build up inside me. I thought to myself “how could he do this to me? Right when I need him the most, the first years of high school…why?”. It took a little while to cope with but I got a shocking revelation from the experience, and that was that my father was not perfect. This ideal of him that I had built inside my mind was not entirely accurate, he was a human with flaws, and these flaws made me decide to become a better person. This period marked the beginning of a new me, a me that relied on becoming the best person I can rather than relying on becoming like my father one day. It took the experience of losing my father to realize that I had not put enough time into developing my own persona. This helped me distinguish myself mentally and properly started me down the road to becoming a strong and independent man, a better man than my father. I do not belittle my father’s parenting qualities, this instance purely provided me with the mental insight that I must never put my son through something like this, and that I must train myself to be the best I can be.
In my life I have always struggled with my self-image. I have tried to adjust my personality to please those around me and be more popular. I believe this was due to me moving around so much as a child and having a new batch of friends every 2 years. I hated the fact that I did not know how my future self was going to turn out. I had a mental picture of how I wanted to turn out, and then I had the image of how reality would force me to turn out as. I was terrified that I would become a dangerous person who was isolated from society, or worse, a threat to society. I tried to change, but it never worked because there was rubric for me titled “the person Ezekiel Starling should mold himself into” and for the first two years of my high school I had no real father figure to teach me about becoming a man. With nowhere and no one to turn too (I could not tell my mom about this, I held up a happy image around her as to not worry her) I simply sank deeper and deeper into the Zeke that I did not want to be. I thought that the state I was in was absolute, and that is what I struggled with the most. The dark promise of eventual insanity seemed more and more prominent as the days wondered on, and this did not change until high school.
I remember a time where I blew it was when I was trying to get into the Ivy League Connection (ILC). It was a big deal to me when I was nominated to participate in such a prestigious program. If I were to be selected to participate, then I would be able to go to an Ivy League college for a w whole month in the summer of my sophomore year. I was pumped and ready for the challenge; I went through all of the steps and made it to the final leg of the competition, the interview. This is apparently where it all went wrong, I had bad interview conduct and as a result come off with the appearance that I was not confident and therefore not a good candidate. Needless to say I did not get picked to go, and I was heartbroken. I had built the thought of me going up so much in my mind that I now had no idea what to do. I felt as though I let my entire family down, and even worse, a lot of my friends were picked to go. This loss of my goal made me hate the whole ILC program and feel like a failure. In the weeks following I developed a different reaction to the experience. The rejection from the chance to visit my dream school over the summer made me more determined to fight for the chance to actually attend my dream school in real time. I realized that I had a lot more work that needed to be done on my own person before I could actually attend an Ivy League college, so in a sense I found a way to make myself get over the rejection of the ILC by looking toward the future. I know I am not guaranteed a spot in any college, but the rejection I have already experienced has braced me for the fight ahead, and this time I will win.
An experience that really taught me something special was my summer camp trip to the rotary funded camp royal in the summer before my senior year. This was a special interact oriented leadership camp that was a week long and without a doubt a truly life changing experience. This was by no means and ordinary leadership camp, quite the opposite; instead of teaching you how to be a leader politically it shows you the spiritual aspect of it. From this camp I learned the true extent of why you should not judge people; we learned from first-hand experience that everybody has a story, some good and others bad. Through this trip I was able to reflect on my own life and not just see how far I have to go, but how far I have come and developed since my freshman year. This trip gave me the knowledge I need to succeed as a leader in life and gave memories I will never forget. I sincerely believe that that that week and camp royal brought out the best side of me and gave me the courage to dive headfirst into my senior and whatever lies after.
Looking back…I have had a lot of really great experiences in high school, but if I had to pick one that will stand out more than the rest, it would probably be being part of the PVHS marching band. Through the band I met some of the people that would end up becoming my closest friends and had some of the best times of my life. Being in band is more than just being a performer; it is being part of a family. When I really think about it, band is full of people trying their best to get along even though we know that we all have our differences, is that not the very definition of a family? I think it is and it is this very family that has shaped my high school image. Due to the band I was no longer just a lost kid trying to find himself, I belonged to a positive and well respected group that had my back when I needed it. Band is defiantly one part of my life where I have zero regrets, the good moments band has brought me defiantly outweighs the bad and I am eternally grateful for it. If I had to give any advice to any middle school kid thinking about continuing band in high school, I would strongly urge them to do it, because it is worth it, there are very few places in life where you can feel truly accepted by people and the PVHS band is certainly one of those places. The confidence and strength I have gained from being part of this family has become my moral support and keeps pushing me in the right direction, even if I start to doubt myself I can always find my way back to the right path.
In my future I hope to be the biggest success I can possibly be. I plan on starting this by attending a four year college. My top choice as of now is Columbia University (my GPA may be low compared to other students, but I am counting on my strong unique personality to secure me s spot). I plan on majoring psychology and/or anthropology so I can better understand people and be able to help them more. I hope to make to make a career of what I love to do most, which is helping people. I believe that all the positive things I have done in my life are meant to be used for a bigger purpose. I never really think about my future family because I think it is weird to focus on something that will just end up worrying me. I can only hope that one day I will have a beautiful wife and kids, until then I will press and go to school to secure me degree and continue bettering myself. I want to do something with my dance and music skills as well, something on the side to keep increasing my skills and have a good hobby to de-stress me in times of dire need. My future is very vague but I have no doubt it will turn out as awesome as I imagine it to be.
It is kind of strange, but in a sense writing this essay has sort of made me step back and look at my life in the form of a timeline. From my darkish past of being a kid with low self-image; to the confident, funny, and overall joyous person that I am today. I have made mistakes in my past but I do not regret anything, for I know that everything has happened to me for a reason. Whether it be the will of God or my own dumb luck, I have turned out on top. This statement made me realize that nothing ever got me down enough to give up hope in myself, and through my experiences I was able to beat my dark side. This is no time for me to start slacking off though… now more than ever it is time for me to keep blasting through the walls of life so I can achieve my goals.
So who am I? I am the lucky boy who found the pot of gold at the end of his rainbow.
