Blog #7(Hughes)

Hughes experiences the pressure of his family and fellow church members to be saved by God. But his faith is challenged when he doesn’t feel the presence of God, and ends up lying about his acceptance of faith in order to please everyone else. I can relate to Hughes’ essay “Salvation” because I too have felt pressure from my family; and learned later on in life that only I have the power to determine the outcome of my life. It was June 7, 2008 a perfect breezy summer morning when I felt the same kind of pressure from my family to do the “right thing.” My day had finally come it was my High School graduation. Over 300 white and black cap and gowns covered the freshly cut football fields of Vacaville High School. The sounds of excitement, nervousness, and the anticipations of the students surrounded me as I looked out into the stands to see if I could spot my parents. Proud parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and out of state family members filled the stands with hundreds of smiles on their faces, and tears in their eyes. As I was sitting in my chair, sun blazing right on my face, listening to all the student speakers’ talk about their goals for the future, I couldn’t help but to think about mine. “What was going to happen next in my life?” I thought to myself as I walked off stage gripping my diploma, I knew the right thing to do was to go to college. But there was one setback, I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life or even if college was right for me. I gazed at my parents, and saw the joy on their faces as I was the only person to graduate from high school in my family and already I could sense the pressure to do well in college.

Finally, I started to calm down during the ride home, until I realized that a big extravagate party was waiting for me at home; where I would be surrounded by family members I hadn’t seen in years. My deepest darkest fears had come to life when I walked in my house covered in pictures of me, with green and purple Mardi Gras themed décor. The first thing that comes out of my Aunt Debbie’s mouth was, “Congratulations Tiffany! What colleges did you get accepted to?” For the first time in my nineteen years of life I was absolutely speechless. So, I did what most young adults dealing with pressure would do, I lied. I swallowed my pride and said, “I’m going to Solano Community College to get my general education out of the way. Then I’m going to transfer to a University.” I felt horrific for deceiving her, and disappointed at myself for lying. The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint my family, they were already so proud of me for getting this far, I couldn’t bare to break their spirit like I had done to myself. The next several hours proved to be one of the most intense, stressful, and overwhelming days of my life, with overflowing lies, and built up pressure from my family.