My name is Noah Christiano Molina. I’m 18 years old. Forgive me in advance if this is the least interesting autobiography you’ve read, but there isn’t a whole lot to say. Strangely enough, you’ll find that I have a lot to say about everything except myself. I’ve always been that way though.
November 5th, 2001: Sacramento, California, my mother gives birth to her fourth and final child, Noah C. Molina. Noah, deriving from the Bible story of the man who built an ark to save all the walks of life on Earth from God’s flood. Christiano, for a family member who didn’t get to experience life like I would. Molina, a last name I got from my dad’s side, who strangely enough are mostly also men.
Once I got on my feet, I never got off them. It helps that I got in them so quickly though. It only took me about 6 months to learn how to crawl, and give or take a few more to start walking.
Then once I started talking, I never shut up. I was eager on that one too; it only took me a year to pick up on speaking.
Once I started reading, I never slowed down. Around the time I was 4 years old, my immediately oldest brother, who’s about 6 and a half years older than me, was doing grammar work for school and I must have picked up on it somehow, because before any kind of schooling, I taught myself to read.
Last but certainly not least, once I started thinking, I never stopped. Nor do I plan to. My parents recall to me that I was a “smart” kid, which sometimes made me the weird kid. Around the same time that I taught myself to read, I somehow had the mental capacity to take apart an entire bike, piece by piece, with no formal instruction on how to do so. I don’t want for this to sound like I’m bragging, my goal is just to make the point that nothing has changed.
There are some cases in which a gift and a struggle perform the same function. I could drone and drone about some strange talent or gift I have like my ability to hold my breath for 3 minutes or my ability to do a headstand, but none of that really matters in the grand scheme. They’re party tricks. The gift however, that I’m most thankful for, but struggle with the most at the same time, is my tendency to think. I think constantly, and there are even some people who tell me that I’m particularly good at it. I often reluct to agree, but at the end of the day, they’re right in a sense. I am good at thinking, sometimes even TOO good. This is a blessing that has caused me a lot of strife for a couple of reasons. For one, it causes me to overthink in situations where doing so isn’t necessarily called for. The other, more problematic one, is that I’ve been this way for all my life. Being this way since you are a kid gives you a lot to live up to, not only in your own eyes, but in those of the people around you. Being “the smart kid” is great until it isn’t.
Junior year was the first year where college was a thing that was on my radar. At this time, I had a very clear cut idea of what I wanted to do: shoemaker. Starting a few years back, I developed a love, a passion even, for fashion, with an emphasis on footwear. So that was it. I would start at community college and make my way to an Art Institute where I would get a degree for Fashion and then make it big in one of the fashion capitals of the world, and this remained my idea until very, very recently. For a reason I can’t quite put a finger on, my love for footwear seems to be gone, or at least dormant. That being said, I’m kind of in a weird place. The same creativity that pointed me toward fashion began to point me toward architecture. Even then though, it doesn’t feel right.
Naturally then, I’ve been thinking about Political Science. It’s lucrative and has so far seemed like something that comes easy to me. I still have a little time to figure it out though, and take comfort in knowing that I, personally, am capable of anything I set my mind to.
that’s all the important stuff i think
Noah's Blog: Part II 