I suppose there is a distinct problem with telling a story—by the time you realize you have a story to tell, you are deep in the midst of it. And often, for many of us, it is hard to tell where the story has ended—or if it has ended at all. I thought this story of self-discovery had ended nearly two years ago with my last piece of writing. But I have come to realize that every breath I take is a story of its own, and I do not intend on taking any breath in vain. Each breath, each story, is a gift I refuse to waste.
I am a "nobody." I have spent my whole life in a small town where everyone knows each other’s name. But few know mine. Some call me a wallflower, my parents call me a "late bloomer,” and I feel like the only flower I happen to be is a weed everyone desperately wants to remove from their lawn. I am imperfect, but not in a “stunning rose” way. I am more of a wilting dandelion in the final days of summer, just before it grows in to a ball of wishes.
I tend to recklessly disregard any sense of normality in my life. Normal is for squares, and I am far from a square. Still, no matter how far I tried to stray from “normal” as a child, I seemed to just hopelessly blend in to the mind-numbingly dull, gray tones of the lockers that lined the prison cell I once called school. My resume, however, always had the social life I never did. Once a month I would see my name in the paper for awards I didn't even know I was nominated for.
Everyone had plans for me. I was expected to be the doctor of the family, or the lawyer, or the first woman in my family line that has graduated from college with more than a MRS degree. Well, the MRS degree is included in the 10-year plan that has been handed to me. But still, they seem to think that a high school GPA and a few cheap certificates printed on construction paper, whose sole purpose is to validate my future, automatically define me.
I’m not sure who I am. I have spent my whole life trying to figure it out. I've gone through every awkward phase in the book. There was the “emotionally fragile” phase. That lasted less than a week until I realized that there was no way to wear thick black eyeliner and not have it smudge all over your eyelids when you blinked. Needless to say, that phase of my life ended after the first time I looked in a mirror. Then there was the jock phase. I learned quickly that it was hard to live up to jock status after being knocked out cold by a dodgeball in gym class. So it was back to the drawing board. But after 21 years, nothing has ever seemed to fit.
After years of reckless self-discovery in the form of late-night writing, I have found myself nowhere closer to discovering who I was than when I first put pen to paper. Perhaps, that was the greatest thing I had discovered-- that through these writings I had strangely decided to share with the world there was this underlying realization that I could not be categorized. And though it took me 21 years to determine that I was unique enough to avoid the categories society arbitrarily threw at me, I still continue to feel a pressure to fit in.
I have never been a jock, an artist, a lover, a fighter, a nerd, a socialite, a beauty queen or a tomboy. Still, each of these things shone through in me. The mission for self-discovery was a puzzle I was trying to blindly piece together—each piece shed a little light, but I still didn't understand the full picture. I can’t say I’m any closer to understanding the full picture, but every time I write, I see the rawest side of myself, and that is a piece I am glad I have discovered through the years.
