Ever since I could remember, I've always loved writing. I remember sitting at my brother's soccer games and drawing pictures of ponies and writing stories about them. I would sit in the backseat of my parent's car on ten-hour car-rides to Virginia furiously typing stories. I had collections of untouched journals. Books decorated my room and were scattered amongst bins under my bed, in my closet, and in the attic. I wrote because I loved it, I wrote because I could express the creativity I felt flowing in my heart, and I wrote because I wanted to see how the stories I thought of could touch people.

I never really truly thought of myself as an artist. I thought I had to create elaborate paintings or be able to mold incredible sculptures. I didn't realize art is in it's most honest and purest form is an expression -- expression of who we are, what we see, what we believe, a delicate look inside the intricate folds of our brains.

It was until my sophomore or junior year of high school I started to view myself as artistic -- when an art teacher of mine approached and told me I had a gift with words and potential in art. I had defined myself as a lot of things: a student, an athlete, a sister, someone who was good at writing, etc., but defining myself as an artist was something I never really thought of nor thought was fitting.

I took a year-long art class my senior year and it really gave me a creative and open space to focus on poetry, it allowed me to flourish. The more time I spent in the classroom, the more I valued my poetry as art and myself as an artist.

Many people ask me if I'm majoring in English or something that has to do with writing since I write so often, but though it may come as a surprise, my major is actually in a health science field. I'm majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders with the hopes of continuing schooling post-undergrad onto grad school to become a speech therapist.

Most people just politely smile and nod when I tell them my major or try to explain it, often questioning where the connection is between speech therapy and my love of literature. There really isn't one. I love writing but I want to maintain that love. I never want it to become tedious or laborious. I never wanted something I love to become something I hated or let that passion fizzle because it became a job. I wanted to remain inspired, passionate, creative -- artistic.

I still have goals, dreams, and aspirations for myself in the realm of writing and poetry and despite my potential career path, it doesn't inhibit my ability to write nor the way I look at myself.

I can be both a speech therapist, or something else if I so choose, and an artist. I don't have to be a one-trick pony.

While a lot of people in my life do know I enjoy writing, they don't know I sketch when I'm stressed or I've written and continue to write hundreds of poems. It's a little essential part of me that I absolutely love, it may be perhaps my favorite thing about myself.

We often try to contain humanity into categories and stereotypes. We try to fit ourselves into more commonly a single major, perhaps a double major or minor -- focusing our attention and honing a specific set of skills. We force ourselves to try to fit in cardboard boxes when we are far too remarkable of beings to be confined to walls so thin yet so constricting.

I don't fit into a box. I don't want to. I'm not simply a handful of stereotypes or descriptions; I am a collection of opinions and preconceived notions, of prejudices and first impressions. I am stanzas and lyrics and words. I am human but I am also art.