Most people know me, but not a lot notice me- especially if you’re standing over 5’10. There isn’t just one word to describe me; you can’t get to know someone with just one word. I have a mixed personality where the people closest to me know that I am actually outgoing and become more extroverted as the time goes on. Whereas the people I have just met, or haven’t opened up to, see me as a quiet, introverted individual. It takes a lot of time for me to open up to new people.
I need trust, to have known the person for a while, and have established the feeling of safety. Only a number of people know me as an outgoing person who won’t stop talking: my parents, close family, two or three friends, my older sister and her boyfriend. The two sides of me are quite the opposite, and possibly controversial, fighting to be recognized.
At school it’s a whole ‘nother story. I turn into a hermit crab in most of my classes, staying in the back, watching and observing what’s happening. I’m usually not making commentary unless I have a close friend to talk to, and there’s only a handful of teachers who actually know how I can be when I turn into an extrovert- not really a handful of people.
I have a difficult time expressing myself, I don’t know why but I just can’t choke out the words I want to say. I struggled with it for a while, but thankfully I had found something to help me: journaling. Whenever I feel like it, I always grab my journal to start writing down my thoughts or feelings because it’s a safe place for me to express myself. I also have adapted a hobby: painting with acrylic or watercolors. Hobbies like these have helped me express myself more, throwing away the worries or stresses of life onto a piece of paper and forgetting about it until I get fixated on another thing.
I struggle a lot with stress, getting fixated on one certain thing and that being what I stress over for a couple of days. If I don’t have things in order, I’ll panic over that until I either figure it out, or reorganize it. I’m always stressed over organization. I stress over things so much, and when I feel like something is not right, I immediately start reorganizing my room. This process usually occurs about four times per week. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out something to help me with this, and that’s okay. It takes time to figure out what to do in order to help this stressful, constant organizing state of worry that I’m still fighting. I like organization, I like my schedule and no changes can be done. I’m an outfit repeater, show rewatcher, meal repeater, and that’s what I like.
One thing that does help me is music. I love music. I cannot express my love for it enough. Everyday people will see me with my headphones on, blasting music to distract me from the real world, or just enjoying the sound. I love to make new playlists, searching for a picture to display the playlist, or going through my mixed music. It’s one of the things I use in order to escape from reality. I listen to a wide variety of genres, from divorced dad music, to rock, nu metal bands like Korn, all the way to Mac Miller and other artists who are similar to him. I always need to have my headphones with me. If I somehow forgot, I know I wouldn’t be able to wait until I could get home and turn on my speaker.
Another thing about me is that I cannot choose. I’m indecisive and second guess myself. Truth be told, I cannot have just one favorite subject or interest, I feel too bad for the other things I didn’t choose first. My sister likes to describe me as an empath, being overly sensitive to others emotions along with their energies. Knowing I cannot have one favorite thing, and hating the questions that always include the favorites of something. Especially when it comes to animals or my family members. I would rather express my variety of things I like, such as Boston Bruins hockey, especially Shawn Thornton pounding other players’ faces in and Brad Marchand body checking others.
I’ve been having a hard time deciding what I want to do with my life, especially with the end of my high school career approaching fast. Fortunately, I chose the one thing I have felt good about, something I have been wanting to do for a couple of years. But even with my confident choice, I still have my doubts, constantly stressing about whether or not I’ve chosen the right path. I’ll be studying advanced automotive along with the high performance of cars, but I still wonder if I should have gone the route of fabrication and refinishing cars in order to appeal to my detail-oriented mind.
I’m only eighteen years old with my entire life ahead of me. I’ve been guiding myself through this overly-complicated world, depending on my judgement. I’ve decided to gamble my future, leave my hometown, the only place I know, to venture out to Massachusetts in order to spend quality time with my dad’s side of the family. Also to be able to see part of the world, a diverse city side that extends out to my future trade school in Rhode Island. I’m parting ways with being a Sentinel Spartan and becoming a New England Tech Tiger.
