I have been told that I am not like most girls. I don't understand makeup, fashion, or what's trendy. I have always been more of a "tomboy" than a stereotypical "girly-girl." Every day, I am more and more happy with who I am, but middle school and early high school was a completely different story.

Middle school and early high school, I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Why was I different from the majority of girls at my school? I watched how all the girls and boys would give me weird looks as I skateboarded around my school. I'd hear people start talking about sports or video games, and I would be so excited that people were talking about things in which I was majorly interested. After years of pressing down my true personality, I finally said enough is enough. I was going to be who I truly was.

Junior year, I finally stepped out of my shell and made the choice to be myself, even if that meant I would have to leave behind the people who would accept me for who I really was. Now, I am a 19-year-old girl who loves snowboarding, sports (majority hockey and football), skateboarding, video games, etc. Those are all stereotypical tomboy things and I am proud of liking all of them, just like of the stereotypical girly-girls should be proud of what they like.

Instead of saying what we don't like and what we don't understand about people, we should just realize that we are all different. It is just awesome that we are all so different from our ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and our personalities. We need to love each other for differences, so then everyone can always be proud to be themselves.