Your teenage years are supposed to be the time in which you find yourself and figure out where you fit in the world. Are you an athlete or a mathlete? A musician? Maybe you’re a social butterfly with all the connections. Or maybe you’re an AP student with your nose in a book. We always say stereotypes are bad and we try to avoid them, but they are so heavily ingrained in our society that sometimes we stereotype ourselves without realizing it.

I’ve never fit in one particular box. I was the nerdy AP student who read Dickens and Bronte for fun. I was the girl who hated chipped nail polish and never left the house without makeup and a carefully pulled together outfit. I was the girl who owned several pairs of boots and lived on a farm, proud of her country roots. I was the girl who loved to marathon The Lord of the Rings trilogy and read all sorts of fantasy in her free time. I was the girl who owned comic book t-shirts and loved playing video games.

I always felt like in order for people to take me seriously, I had to downplay the nerdy, game playing, comic reading, side of myself and only allow people to see the well-read and polished part of me. After all, growing up means giving up on the things society might deem childish, right? Wrong. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize was that I didn’t have to fit within one single label. Labels are too organized and clean for this messy complicated thing called life.

So yeah I dress up, do my hair, and love wearing heels. But I can also tell you anything you want to know about Marvel comics and I can complete the complicated side missions in order to earn a new trophy on my Playstation account. Just as soon as my nails are dry.