Postscript

Going to an overnight summer camp is a rite of passage for preteens. So, a week after my eleventh birthday, I stuffed my trunk with friendship bracelet string and well-worn t-shirts before embarking on the summer experience for which I’d always longed. 

I come from a line of strong women, something my mom never fails to remind me of on calls home. 

I’m a perfectionist.

“So… where are you from?”

I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was 2007, and I was watching my older brother play the new Sonic the Hedgehog game on his GameCube. It was then that my parents came downstairs and told us they were separating. 

While feeling the burn in my thighs and the wind streaking through my hair as twenty-year-old me biked in circles around the same roundabout for the fifth time, I understood it’s normal to learn things on your own time.

If there’s one thing university has taught me, it’s that growing up means officially leaving your childhood behind—but it doesn’t have to be that way. 

I’ve always loved animals. They have a sort of comforting innocence and sweetness about them—if you look into their eyes, you know everything will be alright.

In my second year of university, I became an anxious person.

I can’t count how many people have told me it’s unfair to consider my sister my best friend.

When I was a kid, my mom planted a seed into my head that later became the entire philosophy of how I approach my sports and academics: “we can’t control our environment; we can only control how we react to our environment.”

When I was six years old, I met my best friend on the playground of our elementary school. I was dressed in my classic monochromatic pink from head-to-toe, carrying a floral lunchbox, and wearing my signature matching headband.  

If there’s one thing that studying history makes abundantly clear about our world, it’s that everything must come from somewhere.

My experience with birth control started when I was around 16 and I went on the pill to help with my period pain.

This is not a unique story.

The unfortunate reality of society today is the most relatable and common mindset is one of self-deprecation and self-loathing.