‘This I Believe’ First-place winning essay by Samantha Nothnagel
Winners of the semiannual “This I Believe” contest are in, and first place goes to Samantha Nothnagel. The second-place winner is Maggie Jones, and the third-place winner is David Villegas.
For the past several years, Stockbridge High School and the Stockbridge Friends of the Library have collaborated to offer an essay-writing contest in order to engage Stockbridge High School students in an exploration of the core beliefs that guide their daily lives. Held twice a year, the contest is based on NPR’s four-year-running and now defunct “This I Believe” program.
SCN is pleased to publish first-place winner Nothnagel’s essay in its entirety below as SCN’s monthly student-written column. The second- and third-place winning essays were published in our August and September editions.
First-place winning essay by Samantha Nothnagel
by Samantha Nothnagel
I walked out of my camper and took a step off the rug, my bare feet touching the cold dewy grass. I took a big breath in smelling the fresh morning air and the smell of smoke leftover from last night’s campfire. “SAMANTHA!!!!” I heard a familiar voice scream. I look up to see my best friend running towards my camper, still in her pajamas, “Hey do you want to go on a bike ride?” she asked.
“Sure!,” I said, “CLANK!” The loud sound emerged when I shut the camper door behind me.
We both grabbed our bikes and started to walk them towards the road. The roads at this campground go in multiple loops all connected to the main road. I sat on my all-black bike that had a pink stripe twirled around it, the bike was still slightly wet from the morning dew when I sat down. Isabel got on her pink bike and we both started pedaling towards the end of the road, The feeling of the cold air hitting my face as I began to ride up the hill freshening my breath. We were both still in pajamas probably looking like a hot mess. But no one would care, no one would judge us, no one wondered why we looked that way, we could just enjoy ourselves and no one cares. We rode up the main road leading towards the rangers station until we found our favorite trail. The mile loop, we had been down this trail before but never this early.
“Wanna go in?” Isabel asked as she stopped her bike and turned her head to face me.
“Yes! Let’s go!” I said and then began to ride into the trail.
We rode for about 10 minutes when we came across a small body of water, it was too small to be a lake but too big to be a swamp. We sat down on a tree that looked like it had just fallen down. We saw birds flying from tree to tree, leaves slowly falling every once in a while, and some squirrels running up and down the trees. Something about the way the muddy water was moving was so calming, it was like all my stress had been lifted from my shoulders. It may not have been the prettiest scene out there, but it was different. It may have been the fact that it was 10 am on a Saturday, or the fact that I was with my best friend for the first time in months, Or maybe it was just because I was connected with nature for the first time in a while. I wasn’t really sure at that moment, I just knew something in my mind felt different, a good kind of different.
After watching for a while Isabel and I decided to head to the beach, we went there and immediately walked to the slightly wet sand. I stepped on the beach feeling warm sand climb through my toes, all of a sudden a rush of warmth traveled up my leg and throughout my entire body. We walked a little closer to touch the water and we both jumped away from the cold. Isabel got on her bike and I got on mine. We rode down two of the bumpy roads that looped around until we got to the main road that led back to our campsite. Wind blowing in my hair, sun shining down through the trees, people gathered around their small campfires for early breakfast. It felt like my soul left my body, or as some people would say, it felt like I was in heaven.
In the months that followed, I felt different. I wasn’t quite sure why though, I had been camping before so why did this time feel different? Other than the fact that there was a pandemic going around. I had no clue what it was until now. I realized It was because I was trapped inside my house always using my phone and I got tired of it. I wanted to get away from my phone and this camping trip was my break. I finally let myself get away from the internet while camping, because I was so used to sitting in my camper watching my phone half the time on our past trips so I never saw what I saw on this trip. I saw the true beauties of camping and the outside world without seeing it through my phone screen.
Two months before the trip my life was turned around for the worse. In March of 2020, I had been locked up in my house, unable to see friends or family. I was told, “It’ll only be two weeks, and then we can go back to normal,” The worst part was I believed it. I got to have one last sleepover with my best friend and then I went back into lockdown. I wasn’t able to go shopping, go skating, or even go to school. It was all because of one virus. One tiny germ that turned into Trillions. I barely got out. I stayed on my phone inside and didn’t have any interaction with the world around me except through the internet. I thought at that point I completely lost myself, I felt empty and confused, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I woke up every morning repeating the same events over and over again. Then I caught my break. Every year we would go camping for Memorial Day; usually, we go for 4-5 days with my Aunt, Uncle, and three cousins. My parents were considering not going mostly because of all that had happened in the past months with the virus, but they decided to go and so did my aunt and uncle. I was excited to finally get out of my house and see my best friend again. I was a little worried my parents wouldn’t let me leave the camper, but I was still excited.
The crazy thing is I didn’t know my life would change at that moment, nobody really knows if a certain event will affect them in the future or not. My normal camping trip turned into an experience that changed the way I looked at life. That is why I believe that disconnecting from the phone every once in a while, is key to joy and to a better healthier lifestyle. Honestly, this trip made me look at not only my life differently, but I looked at myself differently. I look at myself sometimes and realize how much I have been on my phone the past week and decided to try and fix it. I try to take every random spur of confidence and use it to help me. I try not to fall into that deep dark depressive state that I was in back in March. I try to change myself and the way I look at things all because of that camping trip. All because of a pandemic that made me hate my phone more than I thought I ever could, all because my parents decided we should still go on that trip, all because I let myself step away from my phone for more than 30 minutes. Those events led me to try and be the best version of myself I could be. I’m not trying to say I don’t still have flaws, because no matter what we do we still are going to make mistakes. I know that most people think their phone isn’t the problem, but most of the time it is, and we don’t realize it is until we make those mistakes. But it is how we react to those mistakes that matter the most. Make the most out of those mistakes by taking a break and disconnecting yourself from the internet. We all deserve it.
Samantha Nothnagel, first-place winner. Photo by Isabel Minch
