Hello to Myself (#Scholarship2015)

Hello to Myself

This is for the girl who chased after medals and fireflies in the lamp-lit dark.

For the girl who carved entire worlds out of paper and pen. 

The girl who grew up catching crickets and silkworms, all bare hands and childish glee.

This is for the girl who knew how it felt to be fearless.

This is for you.

This is for me.

You are five years old and you are a general, commandeering capture-the-flag campaigns with military precision. Scratches and scrapes don't daunt you as you run rough and tumble with the neighbourhood boys, hands on your hips while you boss them all into line.

Eight years old and you want to be a superhero someday. Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent have got nothing on you, and you go to bed each night dreaming that you can fly.

Eleven years old. You're halfway around the world, holding your best friend's hand at his mother's funeral. You tell him it's gonna be okay with childish certainty, and in the same breath you're already making plans. You're still sure that you're going to save the world one of these days, him and you, either that or conquer the whole damn thing. Astronaut, director, Pokemon trainer— you want it all.

Fourteen, and you're still running wild and free. Five schools in seven years, and everywhere people say that you are: confident; outgoing; extroverted. You're determined to shine bright and brilliant, to do good and make people proud. 

And then somewhere—between deciding your future as a lawyer, doctor, or the next Iron Man—you learn how to worry. You worry about yourself, about the people you love, about achievement and expectations and circumstances far out of your control. You worry about disease and death, about funerals. You worry about being a disappointment. You no longer dream of flying. Instead, fear and doubt take root as marks and failures are what fill your head at night. 

Eventually, you don't sleep very much at all. 

There are good days and there are bad days. 

Bad: You spend months of your junior year going home after school and shutting yourself up inside your room. At night you close the door and pretend to be asleep. Days pass like this and one by one the lightbulbs flicker and go dead. You pretend not to notice. You contain all of your self-doubt and continue your self-imposed isolation in the almost-dark. 

Good: Somehow, you're eighteen and you think you're happy again. One year out of four successfully over and done, you throw yourself into the excitement of being a mentor, an orientation leader, taking new frosh under your wing. You're one year closer to your dreams. You have new friends, you have a team, you have somewhere you belong. Everything feels right.

But it's still there. The anxiety, 

squirms and struggles,

whines and writhes,

rattles at its cage,

and it whispers. 

You think you have pushed it down deep inside of you. You think you have won.

You think it doesn't control you?

They still call you: confident; outgoing; extroverted.

They don't see that you're: lonely; anxious; weak.

That fearlessness you had a child— it's gone. And that worries you more than anything else.

You're eighteen and you hit rock bottom. You're holed up inside your room again. You don't have the motivation to study, to go out, to go down to the cafeteria and grab something proper to eat. You ditch your friends and skip practice, letting the responsibilities snowball until thinking about all the work you have to do makes you sick to your stomach. And still, you can't seem to make yourself move. You tell yourself you're still doing good, you're helping your frosh — those are the excuses you use for when you crawl into bed at five in the morning and still toss and turn. 

You stay up until you see the sky changing colours, filling pages in your notebook— 

Sure that all you need

is to take these words, bubbling up inside you,

slap it on an empty page

call it poetry.

You fill pages, then notebooks, trying so hard to put these feelings into words.

And you tell yourself it's all under control. 

But you know it's back— the devil on your shoulder, the monster under your bed.

You shut out the people around you. Texts and messages pile up; emails lie unanswered for months. Your frosh pound on your door and yell at you to stop being a hermit. Gradually, their tone grows less and less teasing. Eventually, they stop coming. 

You hit rock bottom, and still, you get a second chance. 

Second chances:

When a old friend Skypes in from miles away and tells you he's depressed, you stay with him. Hours go by over the shaky dorm room wireless as you assure him that it's alright. You're here. You understand.

When a boy taking his own life becomes a catalyst, you force yourself to put his story on paper and bring it alive upon a dimmed stage. You allow your words to count. You tell the audience, his peers: this matters. You will not be forgotten. 

When a new friend breaks down, you go without a second thought. You talk through years of buried feelings and hurt. You watch as he takes baby steps. You are waiting on the other side the night he cuts ties with his friend, almost his brother — his bully, just weeks before ending up in jail. You remind him that it's okay to hurt. You remind him that this will pass. 

You remind them that they are not alone. 

You are not alone.

And each time, a little part of you begins a little murmur of victory that turns into an insistent pulse.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

It is stronger for the fact that this time, it's a part of you, no longer reliant on others to determine your self worth. 

This, it comes from you.

It tells you: yes, you are worth something.

I am telling you this now: 

You are worth something.

You know there will be good days and bad days.

It's okay. 

When we are young, we are fearless.

You are too young to feel so old.

You still want to fly.

You can still be fearless.