Something that I wrote in high school and only recently found my way back to

I’ve always loved stories and the idea of the impossible and the power of words. The way people use words to portray a certain world and build a certain belief. My life has been changed in many ways by different writers and I would love to be the writer who inspired a young person. There’s a quote I like that goes, “Be the person you needed when you were younger.” I really like that because I was so lucky as a kid to have a lot of older people to look up to and to support me. I had three older siblings, four parental figures who loved me, stepsiblings, and sibling in-laws who pushed me to be a better person. I’ve always had a great life as far as that goes, but I’ve always been searching for a purpose or something to focus my life on.  

People always talk about a passion or something that sets your soul on fire. I never had that, or at least I didn’t think I did. Until I started really getting into poetry and essays and just different types of writing other than fiction/nonfiction. I am passionate about educating people, changing opinions, and making people step back and look at the world in a different light. I also love making people feel less alone and giving them a reason to keep going. Proving to them that they are not the only person to experience a certain situation. I can definitely remember feeling so alone and thinking nobody could understand or relate. When that couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, people feel a billion different ways every day, and the odds that nobody on the planet has experienced at least a similar situation if not the same one is next to impossible. 

Reaching out to someone can be scary, but it also can save your life. Even when you’re too scared to talk to a person, face to face in real-time, books and songs are always there. Lyrics are another fantastic way to connect to someone. Taylor Swift is my all-time favorite musical artist and it’s because through her music I feel like she is my best friend and I’ve known her my whole life. When in reality, we’ve never met, she’s almost thirty, at a completely different place in her life, and in a lot of ways our lives are polar opposites and there is no relation between us. But through her lyrics, I am able to connect in ways I never have with another human. She is so brutally honest and bears her whole soul in her music. It’s impossible not to find a song that portrays a feeling or situation you’ve never experienced. 

Music has always been there for me in a way that people haven’t.  I want to be that person for a little girl or boy someday. I want to give them someone to look up to when maybe everyone else has let them down. I want to give them strength and hope when they have none left. It’s important to me, that we empower the young. So much in the world is designed to bring us down and make us feel hopeless. We need to remind the next generation that, well yes it does look bleak, the world can shine if you only look at it in the right lighting. It’s never too late to change your direction. “Today is never too late to be brand new.” – Taylor Swift. 

It’s all about finding the balance between pushing yourself to go far and forgiving yourself for not going far enough quite yet.  I was talking to a friend about his goal of going into the medical field in the military and helping people in a hands-on way. It made me feel inferior because I imagine my writing as helping people, but it’s nothing like being in the military or being a doctor. And he said that my writing is helping people emotionally or mentally and that’s just as important. That really stuck with me because it made me feel like my passion was worth it. Like it wasn’t just a waste of time to be studying English and trying to be a writer. 

That’s my reason for writing. The first time I read a poem aloud was in my high school talent show. In the fall of my junior year, I was sixteen. I remember being terrified that people wouldn’t like it or would think I’m overreacting. The poem I read was inspired by a quote I saw on Instagram one day, it read, “I wish I was pretty like nature.” That quote inspired me to write a poem about the struggles of growing up in a society where girls are constantly pitted against each other and compared to each other. They are expected to live up to unrealistic beauty standards. 

I remember being in the fifth grade worried about the hair on my legs and armpits as if it really mattered. I want to create the next generation of girls who instead of dressing up because it is what society expects of them, do it because it's fun and it makes them feel good. And when they feel like wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, they do. I will do this through my writing. By writing poems that open the eyes of young girls to their own beauty and the beauty of others. I will also write articles about the harmful effects of the society we are cultivating.