Is it possible to love and hate something at the same exact time? I don’t know what the answer would be but something that I do love and hate is change. Change. When I hear that word it either makes me start tensing from my toes to my head or it makes me jump for joy. When one has anxiety change seems offsetting. A change of scenery, a change of people, a change in sounds. Change is hard. Creating conformity and a monotonous way of life can make you feel safe, at ease. But living this way will lead you down an ongoing path of not changing. Something in life that needs to happen more often is change. In fact if we do not get used to change in our lives we will feel the tense fire in our bodies start rising each time we hear that word.
Change. I found myself first hating change starting high school. Going from one place that I have been for 11 years of my life with the same 60 people and going to a school filled with 4,000 different individuals whom I did not know, scared me. It scared me so much I tried to conform into someone I was not. I hid under the layers of makeup and clothing that each girl wore with confidence. I did not feel confident. How did they? How should I act? I looked at each girl and decided to try to at least act a little bit like them. Flirty, girly, funny, but at the same time so intelligent and adventurous. Now, how could one be all of these things? Each day I sunk all of my true self at school until the weekend came and I could finally feel myself again. Change. Changing myself to someone I am not, changing myself to another person in the crowd who does not stand out. Someone who is okay with changing, as long as they are fitting in.
Change. I now have found my love for change. I think I truly found my love for change this year. This summer, before I started my Junior year of high school, I decided to change my hair. Since the first time changing it I have had black, purple, blue, pink, and violet hair. Each time I walked into school the next day with my hair as bright and as colorful as a rainbow, people would comment. “How many times do you REALLY color your hair?” “I liked your normal hair better.” Each time someone spoke those words into my ear I decided to change my hair again and again and again. I felt as though my hair was my revolution. A color revolution. A hair revolution. A love of myself revolution. Whatever it was, it was working. I stopped piling makeup onto my skin, I stopped wearing bras, I stopped telling myself to be “normal.” Normal is something society puts on us so they can have a hold on what we do. Each time I had a new color on my head I knew I was having people wonder. I kept people on their toes. I wanted people to see I am not who they think I am. You do not know me, you do not hold labels to me. I changed myself. This change was a physical change, yet it changed me internally. I never want people to think they have a hold on me. I want to be someone no one can explain. Only I can explain who I am and that is the way I want it to stay. Change. Not conforming to the normality of society. Loving yourself through all of your changes, through your own revolution.
I want you all to find your inner change. The change in which you feel free. The change where you know what exactly needs to happen in order to be happy. Now it may not be a crazy color revolution but it may be a change in clothing, a change in outlook, a change in the color of your nail polish. Find that little change in your body and tell yourself, “I need this. I can be me.” NO one truly knows yourself better than you do. Be kind to yourself. DO not stick to the conformity that kills your revolution.
xoxo
Sky