This is to the girls who feel like I did once.
This is for the girl who considers herself to be a sidekick and sees others blooming before her eyes while she feels stuck in the shadows.
This is for the girl who's friends get all of the attention and compliments while you are left to feel disregarded.
This is to the girls whose comments are often silenced during the conversations, the ones who always came in second in the spelling bee, & the ones who never won the classroom games.
Who stood quietly in the background and watched her friends grow.
You are so much more. You are more than any another girl, you are anything but another girl. There is no one like you.
You cannot be replaced and there is no other individual like you.
I felt like this up until my freshman year of college, so I know where you are coming from. I sat back and watched my best friends grow, and be successful and popular throughout my adolescent years, while I felt like I was just second best.
I would find myself imitating their behavior because I wanted to be in the spotlight for once, rather than just a co-star. I wanted the attention and compliments that they would receive. This caused me to lose the person that I truly was.
I have said this in many of my writings, but leaving for college and spreading my wings away from the reputations and person I was in high school was the best thing that could have happened for me. I found people who made me feel like I was the first option, and that made me feel proud of the individual I am. I found people who taught me to not allow myself to be walked on, and to assure my voice is never silenced.
However, I strongly encourage you, beg you, to find this voice and sense of self-priority before you are 18 years old. As my little sister starts high school this coming fall, I often wonder if she or any of her friends feel the same way. To those girls this is what I have to say:
When you feel like you are pushed down, push back. When you doubt yourself more than ever, you have got to keep fighting. Do not allow yourself to be silenced. You have to keep trying and trying and pushing and working until you have nothing left to give. Then and only then can you give up. Because if you give up a second earlier, you will never know who you could have been, what you could have done, or who you could have met.
So I implore you, the girl who was picked last in dodgeball, the underdog, the unathletic girl who didn’t make the dance team, keep trying. Keep going. You are so much more than number two. You are so much more than a second place. You are so much more than the sidekick. You are an original, & the star of the show, and no one will ever be able to be exactly like you.
Never allow yourself to be a shadow in the background of other peoples lives.