Thinking of Her

I have been told all throughout my teenage years and into my early adult life that I am too much. 

My dreams were too big

My voice too loud

My laughter too boisterous

My opinions too brash

My emotions too obvious

So I made myself smaller to fit into the box; the box that Society has folded oh so carefully for us to sit in, comfortably. It was cool to not care, to move on quietly unbothered, to follow the person in front of you. I carried on like this for so long, feeling like a fake version of myself, but at least I was being accepted…right? 

I took a job as a camp counselor last summer and I was in charge of sixty 9-14 year olds for six weeks. They ask one million questions a day and you don’t have an answer for 999,999 of them. I always wondered how they could just keep asking questions and coming up with stories and drawings and songs and — you get the point. 

I sat and thought about who I was when I was nine years old and what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be; It shattered my heart thinking about all the ways I had let her down by succumbing to these “rules”. By giving up who she was to become what others had set out for me to be.

So, when did that start? When did we start telling each other how to live? When did we start gutting authenticity for the sake of Society?

More importantly, how do we stop the cycle? 

The answer is much simpler than you may think: just live as you are. Live as loudly, as widely, and as deeply as you possibly can because you don’t get any do-overs. 

By: Hailey Fisk

Year: Junior

Major: Strategic Communications & a Co-major in Entrepreneurship

Hometown: Deer Park, Ohio

Fun Fact: I started a home bakery when I was 14 years old