"Be yourself" is probably one of the most cliche yet most true statements a high-school-er will ever hear. I've heard it from my mom, my friends, my (ex)boyfriend, teachers etc. The list literally goes on and on. But as I am sitting here and writing this, I begin to wonder, at what point am I truly going to take this advice to heart and start living MY life?
I am a free spirit. From the day I realized that I had curly blond hair and most of the other girls had straight/wavy hair, I knew I was different. My mom told me I had "angel hair." God bless her, she always look at the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. Starting at a young age, I was an avid-reader. I read anything within my reach. From magazines, to novels, to instructions for a video game. I was hooked to the written word. There was this feeling I got when I would sit and absorb myself in a big paper-back book on a summer afternoon. It's hard to explain, but it was so satisfying. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't some hermit crab who never went out of the house, always had my nose stuck in a book and never socialized, no, it was quite the contrary. I was actually a social butterfly in middle school. I knew everyone and everyone knew me. I even had several boyfriends. (More than I've had throughout high school, that's for sure).
Then high school. I was so excited to go to high school my freshman year. I looked forward to meeting new people, new classes, (especially English), and playing varsity soccer for the first time in my life. I was stoked.
That open-minded 15-year-old would somehow get lost in translation over the next few years, however.
It's not that I didn't fit in, it was simply my perception. I felt that I viewed things much differently than other teenagers. It may have to do with the amount of time I spent reading, thus I was a tad-bit wise for my age, but at any rate, I could only count my friends on one hand anymore. It was so much different than the way things used to be. The way things used to be. I was stuck; living with my head swiveled around and glaring at my past. I couldn't figure out what had happened to that free-spirit. I often bottled my feelings inside and would write about them in poetry, stories, and diary entries.
I'm not even sure I've completely recovered from that mentality; but, one thing I do know is that I have the ability to change myself. Hindsight tells me now that I was spending too much time trying to please others and what they thought I should be, dress like, date, chose my extra-curricular activities. Maybe I didn't want to be the star soccer player everyone thought I was. Maybe I desired to express my love of the written word. Maybe I wanted to act. To be in show choir. (These are all things, looking back, I wanted to get involved in once I transferred to a new school, but did not because I was too afraid).
My mom always told me that "Hindsight is always 20/20." Meaning that once things are over and done with, we can often look back and them and see things for exactly how they were. As we grow older, we gain objectivity. And wisdom. And, in my case, belief in oneself. Despite a few regrets that I have, I have had wonderful people come into my life and not only verbalize to me the oh-so-cliche phrase "be yourself," but actually live the phrase. By that I mean living they way they're telling me I should live. You know, the opposite of hypocritical. Thank you for helping me rediscover the "free-spirit" in me that has been hiding for so long like a caged-bird awaiting to escape and roam the horizon.