When I was younger, I was the best at everything I did. I was the best in school, best in my age division at swimming, best in my dance class. This was the norm my whole life, until freshman year. Freshman year, my eyes were opened to the reality of the world. I realized then that everything I wanted from now on I had to work for, something I hadn’t been accustomed to. I was used to acing every assignment, and when I failed my first Algebra 2 test, it felt like the rug was pulled out from under me. I stumbled and fell, not only academically, but I lost myself within that too. It sounds silly how one trivial grade knocked me down so easily and swiftly. However, even before I received the grade, I was slowly beginning to lose excitement for what I loved most, things I’d always had a passion for. Academics were all I thought I had left, and taking such a harsh blow was the final straw. I began to live in a false reality where I was incapable, unworthy, and useless.  

As the year progressed, I continued to sink deeper and deeper into an inescapable hole I had created myself. Letting myself be sad was easier than fighting to be happy, like sinking in quicksand. Accepting that this was my new life and all it would amount to, I convinced myself I had a foreseeable future of failure.

I began to have the same recurring nightmare two or three times a week: I was confined in a cramped, dark room, and the only source of light came from faintly glowing math equations written on the surrounding walls. In the middle of the room was a small table with a white piece of paper, written on it a math problem for me to solve. The only way of escape was if I could correctly solve the problem, which I never was able to do. I’d sit in the claustrophobic room for what felt like hours in my dream, reattempting the problem over and over again, and continually failing every time. Slowly, I’d begin to fade as time passed and eventually disappear into thin air, becoming one of the many impossible math equations on the wall, there to remain forever. The nightmare haunted me for weeks without halt, so my solution to that problem was to stop sleeping. A black and white filter fell over my life, and I began to see gray where color had once lived.  I pushed away my friends and family to isolate myself from being seen at my weakest. I grasped my anger and loneliness and held it inside, trying to suppress myself from feeling. The pain transformed me into a person I didn’t recognize, a person I never meant to become. In my darkest moments, I kept a quote in the back of my mind by Emily Dickinson, “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”

School grew more difficult both socially and academically. I feared assemblies and had anxiety attacks because I didn’t have a single person I knew I could sit with. Every day, I’d walk the halls knowing in the back of my mind not one person cared about me. In class, I’d quietly sit at my desk, keeping to myself, feeling isolated as if I were in a bubble while conversations buzzed around me. I was rotting away in a corner and nobody was noticing. I was alone despite being surrounded.

I dragged myself through the rest of the year, failing at everything I did, trying to convince myself to believe I didn’t care. I gave up my passions like art, dancing, and swimming. I didn’t want to see myself fail at what I knew I was best at. This is who I am now. Telling myself this over and over again was walking in a circle, unable to figure out the right way to go. I confided in my close friend at the time, hoping their positivity would translate over to me, desperate to hear something other than the thoughts in my head.

“Emily,” she said, “why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“No one asked.”

After school ended, I had the privilege to go on vacation to Utah, which I didn’t find thrilling despite my usual love for travel. My attitude was poor and all I could do was think, who have I become? I was always haunted by the idea I was wasting my life. Am I alive or just existing? As I hiked in Zion National Park, I looked around and saw myself in the most beautiful place I had ever been. The mountains, standing beautiful and tall, were aged in a multitude of colors that striped from the top of the rocks down to the ground. Chunks of rock were missing along the edges where it had eroded, but nonetheless the mountains still conveyed a sense of power, a sense of strength. It was then and there when I was surrounded by nature in its rawest form I realized I had the power to say, this is not how my story is going to end. In the valleys of the red mountains, I looked up to the blue sky and realized that there will be days that might be stormy, or misty days where you can’t see a thing. No matter the day, no matter the weather, nature moves on and continues to grow, thrive, and rebuild itself, and so could I.

One day I will wake up and there will be no time left to do the things I want to do, I must do them now before it’s too late. It felt like I was waiting for something to happen that never did, waiting for inspiration to strike, eventually just slowly waiting for “The End.” Vincent Van Gogh once said, “I would rather die of passion than boredom.” I came to the conclusion a life lived without passion is a very slow way to freeze to death. Why should I give up my passions? Why should anyone want to live their life and not do the things they love? Today, right now, we are all one decision away from a completely different life, one we should not be afraid to live. We are conditioned to the thought of if we fail once, we fail at everything. Afraid of failure, afraid to let ourselves down. If we make a mistake, we tear ourselves apart until we hate everything we are. Fear does not stop death, it stops life. I know because I experienced it firsthand two years ago, if I was not perfect by society’s and my own standards, I was nothing. Left alone to my thoughts, I constantly berated myself for every little thing that went wrong. I believe we live our entire life inside of our heads, the least we can do is make sure it’s a peaceful place to be. I was constantly haunted by knowing I’d eventually run out of time. Constantly haunted by the thought I was wasting that time. Constantly haunted I’d never fulfill my dreams. Constantly haunted I’d miss out on living. What I failed to realize is the most beautiful thing about life is that I will never reach a time or age where nothing is left to learn, to see, or to be.