My teachers constantly praised the same ideal, “You’re all unique, you are each your own person”. But, I didn’t see that in the movies. I didn’t see that in the people I looked up to. All I saw was perfection, something that wasn’t in my arm’s length to grasp.
As the girls around me grew up from Barbie dolls to beauty pageants, I only grew physically, from 5’3” to 5’8”. All the kids became what I saw in the movies: the popular jocks and peppy cheerleaders. It was embarrassing to still be clutching my worn-down edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (I do not endorse J.K. Rowling at all and will never support her). No matter how much I wanted to change, I remained stubborn, something no amount of books or friends could’ve changed. That was, until I got to high school.
The second I walked through those double aluminum doors, I broke out of the confining shell I never knew I was in. I easily welcomed friends into my life, something that seemed perfect at the time. I wanted to be perfect. I can’t say that I’m perfect now, in college, and that I’ve found out exactly how to be. I’m almost 20 years old, and I could not be more satisfied with who I am. I have a small circle of close friends, who I trust with my life, and I no longer let people in who don’t deserve to be part of it.
I guess the moral of the story is don’t expect to be picture-perfect. I expected to get straight A’s, have a million friends, and be a part of every extracurricular I came across, but that simply wasn’t ideal. It didn’t make sense for me to expect something even Barack Obama couldn’t do. Sure, I haven’t become the picture-perfect popular kid I admired in the movies, but something happened that seemed impossible 4 years ago: I finally trust myself.
Comments