The Tiara-wearing, Bathroom-writing loner
From the Archives | Written May 28, 2010
Clarity was brought to me during dinner with a new friend in the early summer, where our potential was becoming solidified and the world was so vividly at our feet. She told me to put on my tiara and make it happen. I could’ve cried right there in the middle of the Mexican restaurant with the only sound in my mind being my defeatist thoughts eliminating and “Rakata” on in the background. Most of the time it isn’t about knowing that in which we seek, but accepting ourselves and our potential and placing our dreams on a pedestal, finding their place of priority and importance with the Gods.
The senior year of college and the climatic moment of graduation was overwhelming to say the least. Students are forced with the opportunity and burden of soul searching- a chance to discover who they truly are and evaluate whether that person correlates with the person they wish to be. It’s awfully easy to be (or become) the person that others wish you to be and to a certain extent, the person that you become is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you conceive in your mind that major you wish to acquire and your individual contribution to organizations, and speak these goals out loud, a certain sense of accountability is established. The same goes for relationships and friendships. If a person decides they will be the most attentive girlfriend, the most responsible son/daughter, their actions become this person. The adverse is also true. If a person decides they are unable of being faithful, devoted or loyal (in whatever capacity) the outcome is usually true. The same, however, is not true for dreams.
The inconvenience of dreams is that they aren’t convenient. They require unrelenting devotion to achievement and an undying desire to capture their beauty. They don’t come easy. The greatest dreams conceived bring about the greatest form of satisfaction and are the hardest to accomplish. We sometimes wonder why adults stop chasing their childhood or collegiate dreams in exchange for security and stability. We find ourselves convincing each other and ourselves that the stability and security is in fact our adult dream. Which isn’t always true.
As we get older, we realize that the decisions we make and the consequences of our actions have a more lasting effect. Which is sometimes enough to deter or allow us to get in our own way. Moreso than any other time, a college graduate must pull out their deepest dreams and believe in them with an unparalleled amount of conviction, no matter how improbable they appear. Because, without these heartfelt convictions of our goals, we are all the same. Our dreams and the way in which we chase after them define who we are as a person.
Finally, as a college graduate, it is important to find who we are and accept it. In high school and college it is much easier to be what people convince us we are. We are told we are accomplished and successful and we fight to continue to be that person. It was easy for me to be a public presence because I was so convinced that was who I was, that that is exactly who I became. It took that dinner conversation to realize that it has never been more important to be exactly who you are. For me, that is a quiet, introverted writer. The person who as a child wrote in her closet until the early hours of the morning. The person who, as a college graduate and full time adult, finds an unparalleled sense of solace in putting on a Kid Cudi cd and sitting on top of her dryer in the bathroom, with a single subject notebook and a brain clouded with thoughts.
At dinner, my friend told me that she met a girl during a summer college program, while she was in the 8th grade. Her suitemate wore a tiara everyday, relentlessly. Upon entering high school, my friend purchased a tiara and wore it everyday to school, inspired by the strong sense of self conviction that the tiara-wearing girl held. In the fall, a group of girls snatched the tiara off of her head and broke it. The next day, she went to Walmart and purchased a new tiara and continued to wear it everyday for the entirety of her freshman year. She told me the words I needed to hear: to accept myself exactly as I am (and who I am not) and to wear that tiara and just do it.
Life is a succession of accomplishments/successes and downfalls/shortcomings. One can either choose to accept life as it is and follow a path of stability at the expense of chasing their dreams. I’ve decided that I am not that person. I’m a tiara-wearing loner who writes novels in my bathroom and believes in the power of my dreams. My greatest dream is to be the Editor of the College Femme Magazine, a website that I created junior year for the positive development of college women through civic journalism. My dream is to fully create the web magazine into self sustainability and publish a monthly magazine, College Femme, where women are showcased as paradigms of the juxtaposition of accomplishments, trials, tribulations, sadness, happiness and a wealth of potential. And, my dream is to be a published novelist.
No dream is too great to conspire, and I have realized that the only true enemy is yourself. The antagonist of this chapter will no longer be myself, and with my tiara in my trunk and my dreams on a pedestal, I am ready for this post-graduation life. Everyone is scared, everyone self-doubts- its perfectly natural. But just as everything else, the life of a tiara-wearing dream seeker is also a self fulfilling prophecy rooted strongly in personal conviction. Tiara’s are $1.00 and dreams are free to conceive. Therefore, life isn’t in a recession. It is just beginning.
Photo by Nicolas Postiglioni from Pexels
