At age 13, the only thing I wanted to be was a journalist. I convinced myself of a few less realistic ideals, like going to NYU and marrying Harry Styles (the latter seeming almost more realistic after I worked out the logistics of my financial situation). But for the most part, I was solely convinced that I was destined for the world of reporting. I didn’t know exactly what it entailed, but I knew I was excited. Then suddenly, the winds changed and I caught breath of this terrible, existential, dream-crushing air -- my junior year of high school. I’ve summarized that entire year, for the convenience of you, the reader, into a single act play entitled "The Girl That Didn’t Know."
Curtain opens. A very plain girl, of maybe 16 or 17, sits in a single desk which marks the center of the stage. The spotlight brightens and the audience can now see her frightened expression. She squirms in her seat. A sudden burst of questions come from an unidentifiable source.
Voices: What makes you important? Do you know how many writers there are in this world? Can’t you see all your fellow classmates doing soooo much better than you? How are you going to pay for college? What if you don’t get into a good college? You should be thinking of these things for next year...are you?
Girl: (voice shakes, a loud swallow is heard) I-I-I… don’t know?
Curtain closes.
End of Act 1.
Now imagine those voices are your teachers, your parents, everyone you have ever relied on. What was once a shower of compliments coming from all directions, has now turned to a hale of fierce interrogations. Every decision you were ever so sure of is suddenly turned into a massive field of uncertainty. You sit in your desk in class while your teacher monotonously reviews the material for a test that will act as 20 percent of our final grade. It will end up on your report card and then on your transcript, which will be sent to colleges, who will then look at it and think, “They’re not that special.” It suddenly hits you that, those hypothetical colleges are right -- you are not special.
My junior year English teacher made us watch a video of the same title; it was a commencement speech given by, who knows, some well-educated old guy. Of course, it ended in a lighter, more encouraging tone but the part that really resonated with me was the idea of me (really? me??!!) being another small fish in an incredibly large ocean. Every field I had hopes of entering and every dream I had, now seemed minuscule in the grand scheme of things (“things” being the world at hand). It might be easy to say “Just follow your dreams!” and “Shoot for the STARS!” But when the stars are so incredibly far away and your dreams are seeming less and less like an upcoming reality, the hesitation that comes with feeling incredibly unimportant had swallowed my aspirations whole.
At age 16, the only occupation I could fathom becoming was a teacher. I convinced myself that I was okay with this and that I would be happy following the old hackneyed adage, “Those who can’t do, teach.” I wouldn’t even give the do the ability to make me into a can’t do. I was somehow managing to swallow down the medicine of compromise and its side effects were in full force. At the time, I couldn’t stand nearly 80 percent of my teachers. Those who didn’t seem completely absent minded seemed so entirely disconnected from the world of a student and even those who I thought were, eh, probably pretty smart, didn’t ever give me the satisfaction I was looking for. So, I wanted to be that teacher, the one that parents transfer their kids into because they’re just so goddamn good. Those teachers that turn a lecture into a storybook full of imagery and flat-out knowledge. The teacher who doesn’t even need to reference a page number to remember that oh-so-good quote that "Hamlet" says in Act III, Scene I. I wanted to be that teacher.
The problem, however, which I didn’t fully recognize until much later, was that I don’t know if I necessarily wanted to be a teacher. Certainly in retrospect I can’t imagine myself pursuing such a career, but at the time, I wanted to be the best at what I could in fact do. Since I couldn’t be the best journalist and I certainly couldn’t be the best writer, I was going to do my best to be the greatest teacher of all time, so great that even Socrates would nod his head in approval. I went and visited great teaching schools in the middle of New Jersey that had “CHEAP TUITION AND GUARANTEED STABILITY!!” written all over them in bold print. I told my parents I wanted to be a teacher and they were happy to see me aspiring towards something reasonable. I told my friends and they could “so see me being one of those cool teachers that wears really fun businesswear.” Then I told my teachers I wanted to teach, in hopes of receiving that welcoming warmth, a hug of groundedness that would bring my boiling worries to a simmer. But such was not the case and they actually leaned more towards responses such as: “Really? That’s it?”, “In this market?”, “Even with the pay decline?”, “Even with so many people entering this field?”
Now, this came as a complete shock to me, I had made the assumption that the same teacher who had showed me a video discouraging me from feeling any sort of self pride would be appeased with my newfound aspiration. But of course, irony just had to interject itself and I was, yet again, left feeling hesitant. I had one more year to decide my fate because after my senior year I would pack my bags and ship off for my destiny (it’s this sort of excessive melodrama that I think heightened my feelings of intense uncertainty). Of course, in the beginning of my senior year, I was left stranded back far beyond my 13-year-old-self square one and didn't have a single clue what I wanted to do with myself. This is where I find so many senior students end up and that’s okay.
It’s okay to be stressed over college; you’ve been told for 12 years that it’s something to be stressed over. You’re only being your slightly animalistic human self every time you cringe at the mention of a transcript or class rank. It’s more than okay to not know what you want to do because if you try hard in school, get those grades that you worked for and take those awful, monotonous, honors weighted courses that have nothing to do with your major (but, look great on transcripts!), then you’ve opened a door of opportunity for yourself. You have the chance to be indecisive, you can change your mind, your school and your major, Maybe even change your hair and clothes along the way. Don’t question your own ability to change, we are humans and we acclimate -- hence the arm hair and sundry of skin tones. You are a shape-shifting, metamorphic, demigod and don’t let any junior year English teacher tell you differently.
When I was 18-years-old, I thought and continue to think, as I am only about halfway into my first year of legality, that I’m going to be a writer. I have no idea what kind, perhaps a journalist or a novelist or maybe I’ll end up writing advertorials for ELLE magazine. I truly don’t have the slightest idea. But I’m doing things I love, I’m putting my words on paper and bringing my silly little adages into real life. It is what makes me happy and what keeps me going through my mentally draining math class, my physically draining hours of work and my emotionally exhausting less-than-an-hour long jogs (yes, emotionally).
While I often find myself frantic, I’m not bored and I don’t feel unimportant. I feel special. Partially because I remind myself every time that I put on my ankle socks and oxfords that I am so freaking unique. But mostly because I realized that you can’t live a compromised life in hopes of finding happiness. I’m rolling with the oh-so-many punches, I switched my major within two weeks of school and I make no guarantees that I won’t do it again. And nobody objects, or panics, or gives me looks of discouragement. I implore you to do the same, to roll with punches, wear nonsensical socks that make you smile, paint if you want to make art and punch numbers in a calculator if you want to calculate. But don’t settle. The Jamestown folk did that for us long ago and while it was pretty special when they settled, I can hardly say the same for a modern high schooler (unless you settle in Antarctica, which would be, dare I say, pretty cool).
