Smells Like Teen Spirit | Teen Ink

Smells Like Teen Spirit

January 14, 2010
By archergirl1010 BRONZE, Litchfield, Connecticut
archergirl1010 BRONZE, Litchfield, Connecticut
3 articles 28 photos 3 comments

Favorite Quote:
Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.


Chameleons can change color based on their mood, the temperature, or a change in light conditions. They are made up of many layers. As chameleons change color, the pigment cells on each layer grow or expand as one shade becomes more dominant than the other. For a chameleon, change is it good. Change is what enables it to find a lunch or not be gobbled up for someone else's lunch. But, rather than change based on my mood, how hungry I am, or whether I slept through my alarm, I become someone else with each person I meet, each situation I am placed in, or each mood of someone else's. I change. I can totally be that shy girl in school. That girl no one knows beyond superficial facts given when the Spanish teacher asks what everyone's favorite sport. I can be that bubbly girl who laughs at a cute boy's every joke. Pretending he's the next Dane Cook. I can be that serious artist. The one who likes to watch documentaries and french films. I can listen. I can talk. I can sit in silence. I can be just about everything, but me. Whoever me is. I change, not consciously, but I slip into a completely new persona with each person I'm with, based on their mood, their hunger or whether they slept through their alarm. Each person I become has different values and ideals, causing a lack of self confidence; it being difficult to have confidence in an unknown self. Caddy me hisses in my ear, “talk about her,” whereas nice me whispers, “that was mean,” compared to self-conscious me, which almost inaudibly says, “imagine if that was you.” No one knows who I am; I am someone new with each person, each experience I am in. I don't even know who I am. Who am I to judge anyone? But when I am with her and she is gossiping, I am. Chameleons know when to stop. They can decide when to change and slip into a new persona. I can't. It doesn't stop. New layers are always showing through, but because of this, For me, there is no last layer, no essential point of who I am, no person who I really am. There is no one person that makes my decisions and my choices. Chameleons do not resist change. They become it; inhabit it, because they know, when they are done, how to change back, and become who they really are. I cannot, I do not.



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