On the night before my best friend's birthday, I can't sleep. So, I start watching people shave their heads. The idea of having a shaved head as rebellion, a way to reset, intrigues me. It is this big thing that could change my world. I fall in love with this idea. It is uncertain and exciting. I want it.

I wake up the morning after my night of watching people shave their heads and I need to shave my head.Yes, I am scared but the excitement of it thrills me. I immediately tell anyone I can and no one thinks it’s a good idea. I want to do it more. This is my new dream and I love the idea that it will change me. I need to be on the other side, where the grass is greener.

Every morning, I eat the same breakfast. Just like my dad, who drinks 2 cups of coffee lukewarm, just how he likes it. It hasn't changed for years. Mine is just a cup of coffee, a banana, and a piece of buttered toast. To me, my breakfast is perfect. I have never gotten bored of the same food. Why add jam to my toast when butter is perfectly fine? 

When I was 5, someone told me what an engineer was. It became my new dream. I fell in love with the idea of myself as the smart grounded girl. As I grew up, it was my future. I never thought to change my dream, being an engineer is perfectly fine, why change?

I grew up in a house devoid of any change, sitting in the same sits at dinner since before I can remember. This made me love rebellion despite my fear of change. I can overcome every other wall, society, other people but there is always one wall left, me. Until something in me that loves rebellion bursts through where the grass is greener, until it isn’t. 

I know I have to shave my head in the summer. That way I can come to school as the new me. One Saturday morning my dad shaves it. It isn't this big thing like I thought it would be. It was one and done and as soon as it happens I haven’t changed as a person. 

On open house day, I knew I was going to choose choir as my elective. Even so, me and my mom went to the art room and I loved it. A little part of me wanted to be there more than I wanted to be in choir. Yet, when my mom asked me, “Are you sure you don't want to join art?” I said “no”.

I was glad I shaved my head because in some ways I did get to become the better me. I got to explore and find the person I wanted to be. I began to change myself in small ways, like drinking tea before bed. I haven't become this new person, I have just blossomed more. 

In freshman year we got two electives. I finally had my chance to choose art but this was just a year. Then I would just go back to where I was. Still, it was weird walking into the art room for the first time, as an art student, because I knew I was supposed to be there. I spent the first semester thinking I would leave sophomore year but as time went on I grew to dread the coming year. What would I do without art? I began to ponder the idea of staying. I worried. I was scared but I had already spent years wanting to be here, why leave when I had just started? When Mr. Smith asked the morning before the final, “Are you staying in art?” I hadn’t decided. Yet without hesitation, I told him, “Yes”. 

Choosing creativity over stability is not a small thing. It's not little, like putting almond milk in my coffee. It's too different. I want it.

Art has become my thing but it's just a passion, right? I was scared for years to be in it. And when I did it, it was that same feeling as shaving my head. Of nervousness and excitement mixed together, like happy little butterflies. I don't want to spend my life as this thing I love being just a thing. In the past year, I have thought a lot about the possibility of my career being something different then I always wanted it to be. It's scary, but I spent years regretting that day at open house when I didn't choose art. What if I spend the rest of my life asking the same question?