Brian Holahan
There were two very different Razor scooter experiences that will resonate in my mind forever.
Freshman year, I was a shy, timid kid who had a really close knit group of friends. We all lived in the same neighborhood so we could hang out easily, but our activities were limited since we didn’t have a car. This forced us to be creative, fun, and definitely weird. We kept to ourselves most of the time and I thought of an idea: instead of riding the bus to school, let's all ride our Razor scooters. This idea seemed harmless. We just wanted a fun means of travel for the 3-mile journey to school that day. I definitely didn’t want to attract attention to myself, so we left early in the morning to avoid the older students driving to school.
Everything went smoothly the morning of the adventure. The latter half of the journey went, to say it bluntly, quite poorly. Scooting home, we awkwardly rolled by while the entire line of intimidating, BMW-driving, cool glasses-wearing upperclassmen judged us. Their stares and whispers made me feel like an outcast. There was a point in the voyage where I tried to cross the busy road, completely cut a car off, and from his cherry red convertible, this senior yelled, “YOU'RE AN IDIOT!” (except he didn’t say exactly that). Don’t get me wrong; he had every right to react in such a fashion, but as a young high schooler who was already quite shy, those words crushed me.
Fast forward to my senior year. I still had the same group of friends, but we had become older, wiser, and closer. We were also regular motorized commuters to school each day. My less than positive scooter experience back in my freshman year was a distant but still powerful experience in my mind, yet it gave me a hunger for one final trial at that scooter trek. This time, with confidence, without fear of being judged, and a good amount of balance and concentration, me and my squad took the road on our two wheels once again and had the ride of our senior year.
The ambition to be unique has been an aspect of my personality that has developed the most throughout high school. Freshman year, I wanted to stay in the shadows without anyone casting a glance at me. Senior year, I couldn’t care less about what people think of me - the more stares and smiles spun from my harmless antics, the better.
On paper, I am an Eagle Scout, a foreign exchange student, a volleyball state champion and captain, a top student in school, and a big volunteer. I am very proud of these achievements, and who I have become, but at the end of the day I think that the most memorable moments in my life will be the creative and fun-filled ways I have lived them.
This quote from the 150th Pokemon in the Pokedex, Mewtwo, summarizes my point very well: “I see now that the circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant, it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.” Since the scooter rides, I have become confident, true to myself, and driven to be unique. The good news is, not many colleges allow for freshmen to have cars on campus, so it looks like my story with the scooter is far from over.