It was a normal sunny summer afternoon in 2010, the sunlight was disappearing and was accompanied by a cool breeze,and my brother and his friend had been playing outside in my yard as usual. I had never thought that day would have been a memory of one of the most irrational decisions I have ever made in my life.
Me being the annoying child that I was, I decided to go outside and play with the “big boys” despite the warning from my mom that I might get hurt. So after playing catch with a baseball peacefully with both of them, my mom said she was running to the store down the street, and immediately after she left, things changed. They started throwing the ball harder, telling me,
“If you can’t handle the heat then you should go back inside little boyyyyyy.”
As right as he was, I decided to keep playing anyway, and ended up catching a ball with my face. It felt as though I had been struck in the face by a speeding bullet, quickly bursting into tears, and my brother and his friend found it somewhat amusing, so my pain then turned into anger. After a few minutes, they came over to check to see if I was okay, once they saw the mark on my face, they felt bad and apologized.
“Sorry buddy, I told you to go inside,” he pointed out.
“SHUT UP!” I exclaimed, with anger filling my body.
Anger brewing in me, I decided to pick up a bat while he was walking away, and threw it as hard as I could, and as I watched it fly through the air spinning like a helicopter, it struck him in the back of the head. My luck, I thought, with a sense of both sorrow and relief inside of me, I walked over to see his head, which was deformed by a large bump the size of a golf ball. Of course the minute I decided to do something wrong, my mom had been pulling into the driveway. She immediately started yelling at me and helping my brother, not even letting me tell my side of the story, as usual. I had known the instant I threw that bat that I would regret it, and I turned out to be right. Looking at the tears flowing down my brothers face like a waterfall, I realized the extremeness of my actions.
I knew that if I had just apologized instead of getting angrier, nothing bad would have happened, and I wouldn't be in the situation I was in. After my brother had been checked on and I was finished getting yelled at, I went to my room and sat there alone for what seemed like ages. The dead silence of my room drove me crazy, and caused me to hear my own mind screaming at me for throwing that bat.
You’re an idiot! is what it seemed like my mind was projecting at me.
I thought that I could never talk to my brother again and that my whole family hated me. The next morning, I woke up and was terrified to go downstairs because I knew my brother would be down there eating breakfast. So after I worked up the courage to go down, I was ready to be screamed at again, but the exact opposite happened. Instead of my brother yelling at me, he greeted me.
“Good Morning” he said, and continued eating his breakfast.
I knew that he was mad at me for what I had done, but he made the decision that I didn’t and forgave me. After I had perceived what had just happened, I decided to apologize to him, and he was quick to accept my apology and forgave me. I was still grounded for a week, but I felt better that we were on good terms and realized that it's better to stay calm and think before acting in tough situations.