I am so used to being asked the question, “What are you?”, and feeling unsure how to reply. Should I reply, “Asian? Indonesian? Hipster? Enthusiastic nerd?” I am always lost for words. It does not hurt my feelings, but it just paints a picture of how identity matters so much to everyone. People are consistently looking for a sentence, an animal (spirit/non-spirit), or an object that could somehow define the totality of a person. I don’t get that. I cannot define myself in words. There is too much of me. Too many images, too much knowledge, interests, and experiences that I could possibly gather and process into a digestive treat that people could swallow and understand. However, if I were to sum my life up in a statement, I would say that it looks like a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal.

Why Lucky Charms? Because among the mundane brown colored oats of life, there are so many magical, rare and delicious moments of life that really define me as a person. These plush multicolored pieces of my life may get judged for time to time because of their uniqueness. But then again, they are a part of me, and I couldn’t change them if I wanted to.

I remember the first day of middle school, my classmates asked me why I didn’t wear a hijab, whether I had the tendency to get into a street fight, if I ate dogs, or have broke parents. It’s funny to look back now, but before, I used to detest what I saw in the mirror. I’d think to myself, If only I had porcelain skin, straight jet black hair, and thin lips, then people would like me more and I would not get bullied. I looked at my wavy raven hair, olive skin, ass and chunky spectacles and loathed every inch of it. To make things worse, I didn’t know much about my heritage and there was a limited amount of Native Indonesians surrounding my environment so I began to feel an inevitable loneliness there.

I let hate consume me. Days and days passed and my body and soul became devoured by hate. I hated my school, I hated everyone and I constantly had long arguments with my friends, siblings, parents, dogs, whoever got in my way. I would come to school feeling terrible, lacking sleep, and doodled all over my books during class. Gradually, I did several destructive actions in school to channel my anger. I remembered being so angry and bored that I pulled the fire hydrant to prank people in the bathroom, sold illegal items and stole some books in the library just for the fun of it. The worst part of it is that I committed the act of stress eating for 3 years, which made me look even more like a disgusting culprit. My teachers were concerned about me. I recalled one of my English teachers asking me “What is wrong with you, Sarah. You’re a smart girl but you’re putting your life down the drain.” It was embarrassing for me to hear, but even more embarrassing for me to go to the counseling room every day. I admit, my counselor was a nice lady, but she couldn’t help much. My parents also came through and tried to understand me. They gave me talks and said that I should “cheer up”. But how would that help me? What I needed was something that could fill this hole in my heart. Something that would tell me who I am as a person. Despite this, I just categorized myself as a problem that could never be solved.

My dreams and ambitions were somehow opposing the idea of normality. I was drowning in a sea of clubs and activities. I was in theater club, band, swimming team, student magazine, fashion design, language club and ran a small cap business on the side. I also consistently switched from one friend group to another just to fill in my interpersonal needs and to not look “lonely”. But it’s not easy. It was natural for me to find it tough to juggle my social life, clubs, and school. This all happened until a strange turn of events occurred to me during freshman year.

I was walking down the hallway when my IT teacher, Mona, suddenly asked me to have a talk with her. I agreed and sat with her in the computer room. She said, “Dear, what is on your mind these days? You were jumping around with different types of people, you stared at me and Ms. Monica when we’re talking in Hindi and you always have that weird look on your face. What is that? And your hair…It looks like a bird’s nest. So strange.” I tried not to laugh because it was rather arduous to understand her. She talked so rapidly and with a thick Indian accent, which was entertaining but I digress, she was right. I am a rare breed and I will always be. So exactly at that time, I decided to embrace who I am. All of it.

I no longer have the burden to be someone or have hate in my heart, because now I can be myself, unapologetically. I came to the point where I didn’t care about the norm and so I appreciated what I had. Gradually, I started learning more about what I like and myself. I volunteered, learned Muay Thai and yoga, acted in short movies and took courses in NYFA for acting, ESMOD for fashion design and Columbia university for finance. I also managed to increase my understanding of God and my Native Indonesian roots by joining a club of kids from the same tribe as me. There was so much love in my heart for myself that it transcended to other people. Adapting with different crowds became less of a challenge since my variety of interests could somehow match up with theirs. In addition, I started picking up different types of accents and languages from communicating with my friends and my multicultural teachers in school. In short, I never want to go back to my dark side.

Now that I’m in college, everything makes sense. The rigorous study hours and extremely competitive environment that my former high school had provided, made 20 pages of reading and class discussions leave me undismayed. Additionally, since I have kept a spirit of forced tourism all my life, being the only Indonesian on campus isn’t that bad either. It actually makes me feel special and almost remarkable in a way. Truthfully, I still miss home and my language. It does irk me a little bit that I have to go all the way down to Queens or NYU to converse with Indonesians and to be an ambassador of my country every time I meet someone new. Despite that, I’m surviving and life is beautiful.

In reference to this topic, I recollected what my History of Economics professor said in class, “To be in business, you can never be alone. To be in business, you need this *clasping his fingers* CONNECTIVITY! CONNECTIVITY!” What he said was true and now I understand my purpose in this world. It is not to be an entity, it is to connect. I have so many interests and distinct incidents that happened to me that the only thing that makes sense is to synergize all of these ideas and be an entrepreneur. Thus, I agreed to myself that my life really is a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal. Every piece of my existence is so colorful and different. But I love every bite of it.