A Cliche Definition (An English Assignment)

 This blog will be a little different than the rest. In my English class, we were assigned to write an essay about a time when we were judged. This story is extremely universal and very cliche, so I can only assume it will be relatable to it's reader. 

In Junior High, all I wanted to do was to be cool. Like many others, I wasn’t used to all the new faces and found myself in the guttural realization that it was not okay to be the same little kid I was in elementary school. The people before me were mature, beautiful, and most importantly, somehow known by everyone. They were everything I knew I wasn’t and to achieve the new standards I set for myself in my head, I began to self-criticize my every move. My goal: total improvement.

Naturally, I started my journey by secretly downloading TikTok and searching every inch of the app to “find myself”. I began to join new circles and try to figure out who I was through my friends, trying to figure out how they were able to be so effortlessly perfect and why I was not. There was a group of people, I suppose you could call them the popular kids, that controlled my self-image. Their conversations were filled with stories of wild nights, pop culture references, and the ever prominent backhanded remarks. It may sound like I idolled them or something, but in fact it was the opposite. I didn’t like their personalities and I saw myself as completely separate from them in that way. Yet, the little girl in me craved to be the teenager I had always dreamt to be, so I tried my hardest to dissect myself just enough to find the perfect mix. Essentially, a better version of me.

Of course, all of this effort would inevitably lead to a road block. A challenge that even my greatest strengths could not beat. The fact was, I was always different. I was born to be set apart from the people I tried so hard to replicate. This was all made clear when a girl in my grade said something about me behind my back.

“I don’t like her. She’s weird.” Weird? The single thing I had been fighting against for so long? The chronic illness that I was in remission for? As meaningless as that little word sounds now, it was soul crushing. My life’s work and my entire existence had gone down the drain.

I was ruined for about 10 minutes there. Then, I had a total epiphany. From then on, my mind would be altered forever. “What defines being weird?”, I thought to myself. I had so many good qualities to overrun the bad. I made people laugh. I had clothes to keep me warm. The books I read kept me smart. At that moment, all of my hard work turned into something new. The war had ceased, and one thing was left with me. I was, simply, growing up.

No matter how hard I forced myself to change, it was no use. I had been changing from the beginning and the words of another couldn’t alter that truth. So maybe I was falsely judged, or maybe I was judged correctly. Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter now. I was, and forever will be myself, changing through the years yet always staying just the same.

I hope this found you well. Through my super extensive lifetime (of sixteen years), it has come to my knowledge that every life-changing event can be morphed into a learning experience. The way I see it, every mistake and misfortune is a divine life-lesson from my Heavenly Father, and I have to say it makes that "Oh Yeah" moment of realization 100x better. I firmly believe that these moments are what shape me as a human, so I leave you with this.

Let not the hardship of an experience define you, but what you learned from it. If every difficult situation you find yourself results in internal growth, then wear the results with pride and leave the struggle in the moment it happened.