Within every living person, there are hardships and struggles. The richest person can feel lonely, the friendliest person can be depressed alone, and the smartest people may have trouble doing work. That’s the thing with living people is that we are taught from a young age that you should keep your true feelings to yourself so you don’t get in other people’s way. For a long time, I was a part of this group and I know that everyone reading this was too at some point in their lives. This is a common struggle for everyone and everyone finds different ways to handle it.

“And sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself because I could find no language to describe them in.” -Jane Austen

As mentioned before I was one of the people hiding their feelings and it took a long time to really get over it. It really wasn’t until quarantine that I started realizing what I did, and I think that being alone with just family and being able to express myself completely changed how I felt. I really realized that it didn’t matter what people thought of me because, in the end, I most likely wouldn’t even know 1/2 the people when I leave Highschool. I really started to “come out of my shell” about 3 months into freshman year when I realized that the people that I hung out with weren’t good people. Now, this didn’t mean everyone but the majority were people who made fun of people for no reason, or didn’t actually care about me and only hung out with me when they needed someone. I realized I was pretty much the backup if someone bailed on them. The breaking point was when one of my “friends” would never talk to me and even make fun of me, but since we shared a class together, he would constantly ask for the answers and for me to do their work. I started looking for better people and I found a group of friends who actually cared about their education and were genuinely nice to me.

“I’d rather have an enemy who admits they hate me, instead of a friend who secretly puts me down.” – Karen Salmansohn

I think another big thing that made me change was my cat. Now no one really thinks that a cat could change how you express your feelings and might think this is dumb, but my cat really did help me. During this summer we got a gray tabby cat named “Chowder”. This is the part that really changed how I expressed myself because before getting a cat I was 100% a dog person. To be honest the only reason I wanted Chowder was that he was a pet and it would be nice to have him around. This all changed the moment I saw him, as I saw how cute and playful he was. To this day, he is honestly my favorite thing in the world right now and I love hanging out with him after a long day. If you’re wondering how this made me express my feelings, well it was because I used to think that if you weren’t a dog person, you were either dumb or hadn’t seen one. (Dumb I know) But I really did think that liking dogs more meant you were more “cool” or more “manly”. And after having a cat, I am honestly more of a cat person and wouldn’t change him for any other dog.

So being yourself isn’t an easy task, it’s hard to express yourself. You’re going to think “They think I look/sound stupid” or ” They aren’t going to like how I am” but if you are true to yourself, then even if your friends leave you, you will find friends that like you for who you are. If you are around people that like you or are/have similar hobbies or personalities, then you will always feel better. They will be there to lift you up when you need it, and in turn, you can help them too. So what you can take away from this is that being yourself is difficult, it will feel almost impossible, but when you are able to break that shell and express yourself, you will find happiness.