Gabrielle Reyes Mad World Define yourself for me, give me a simple exert about you. To be honest that is an understatement, how can one write about that in which they don’t know, for me to give you a simple five page paragraph about me would be doing myself an injustice not only because I think I deserve and have a lot more than that of which could fit in five paragraphs but because in all honesty, I’m learning more and more about myself each and every day. Yes we all have a surface in which has led and molded us as people but it’s not who we are. Our lives as human beings are passages on a voyage being discovered each and every day , this world is a simple canvas that we paint on frequently , elegantly and abruptly as life continues on. My name is Gabrielle Reyes I am 19 years old and finishing up my teen years in Suffolk County despite my disinterest in this island I do love to call it home. It’s not even so much of a disinterest it’s more of a dislike for the people in which surround me in my home town of Shirley. I don’t and won’t ever blame the environment and earth for the dismay I feel because being an environmentalist I find beauty in everything from the smallest field of grass to the deserted island in the middle of the ocean near the bay. Long island is such a historical place and I feel as if it’s under shadowed by the big apple and not credited for all the beauty and jewels in which it holds. I live in a beach front community where the ocean is about 30 minutes walking (depending on how tired I’m feeling and how hot the sun is beaming) and five minutes by car. I have such fond memories of Smith Point beach, all the summers my family would pack our lunches and travel in large groups and just run around enjoying the summer at its best , or maybe when I was a teenager and would pack my bathing suit ahead of time and dart right to the beach with all my friends and play beach volley ball and Frisbee and just be obnoxious 14 year olds, or how about when I met the love of my life and would spend our time laying with each other in our spot that we would always go to just enjoying the fact that we were in such a beautiful place with nothing but ourselves and the vast wet desert that was infinite with possibilities. When I think of home I think of all the times of love laughter and struggle I’ve experienced in one town and county but I also think of all the beauty in which my small eyes have captured and really taken the time to take notice of. Home doesn’t always have to be a house, home is somewhere in which your heart can lay and be content with its self, somewhere in which it feels so effortless and tranquil that nothing is comparable to that. Long island is home and I would never become so far sighted to forget that. Family to some people is just another human in which they share blood with, but family to me is the clay in which sculpted me up from a baby to an adult, the back bone and foundation to what I will and can ever be. Without a good infrastructure your whole building is bound to fall, without a good upbringing to me, you can’t ever reach your full potential. My father was always there but at the same time he was awfully absent. My parents divorced when I was 8 and that tore me and my 11 year old sister apart emotionally at the time, life if seemingly perfect until the cracks begin to show. All in all it’s something that hasn’t affected me in such a negative way because the love that seemed to shatter was quickly replaced by the infinite amount that my mother displayed. My mother a strong Italian/Irish woman , she never gave up on us never took a day off and sure as hell never made excuses for the situation we were in . My extended family was quite large last count that me and my grandmother had was about 45 grandchildren and great grandchildren that is not including all the adults. So I never felt alone and I never felt as if I should feel bad for myself because seeing how some