Street lights buzzed as vehicles passed by them, racing to their final destination. The bright colors of the sky fade into a gradient backdrop, letting the sun rest up for the upcoming day, Christmas. Everyone was off work and on break, dressed up in their most comfortable clothing from their overcrowded closets and hops in front of their fireplace. Signs of glee spread across everyone’s petite faces as it has been months since anybody has last seen each other. The children chased one another, hovering over furnitures while the adults chatted and filled the room with cackling laughter.
I sat beside my sister who was 11 years old at the time: silky, brown hair, glossy eyes with relaxed shoulders, fingers gripped tightly to her can of Coke and sitting upright to give off the impression she was worthwhile.
I didn’t care however of what my step-family felt about me. Judgements, I knew instinctively, were what people do by looking at someone from the surface--what they look like, act, or say--without meaning to be offensive. Downgrading me with their beaming, unamused eyes stripped my confidence on communicating, I was a failure to them. They tested my reaction with multiple topics, tapping their feet against the rough carpet, holding down their knees from the rhythmic bouncing, and covering up their trickery with false grins.
“How’s school?” they would always begin to ask.
“Great,” I would then mumble, darting my attention to the ground and fumbling with my fingers. I didn’t get the idea of trying, what was the point? I pretend to smile and to laugh with the others--it wasn’t right obviously--but it prevented people to question me. “Just smile and wave,” I tried to tell myself. “Maybe, they won’t notice.”
I was going to be fourteen in six months, but it didn’t matter to me, not anymore. It wasn’t that I had, in fact, changed schools or homes that I became stubborn, I’ve always been like this from the start. In elementary school, I had no friends. I didn’t want to concern myself with the human population instead I listened to the winds that rustled through the leaves and the honks of passing cars and trucks during recess. The sounds that constantly played naturally outside was harmonic in which lifted my made-up problems and would send me to a daze. How I wish I could relive those days, I thought repetitively. It seemed that the world would go on into infinity while I had no specific definition holding me down to earth. Nothing gave me the churning gut feeling that I was looking for, the sense of why I was alive everyday. Time ticked away but I stayed behind, the same person as I was looking back at the fluffy clouds passing in the sky that appeared to be only feets away in my childish mind.

I snapped back into reality, batting my eyelids slowly and came to the realization that my younger siblings were tackling down large presents and clawing into them until only the boxes were visible. “How cute, it’s a toy car!” screeched my mother as my brother flails the item into the ceiling and ending in a loud thud as it lands The gifts were passed around to their respectable new owners and then it came down to my sister and I. Two years full of frilly, girly outfits and unnecessary makeup thrown into our faces which I wouldn’t blame them since our stepfamily wasn’t much aware of our interests. I had left behind my previous life that I was raised in, in which everyone I knew and loved, for strangers and resettlement. Where I am now is only three hours from my old home and I visit there many times for school breaks, yet it often feels distant.
I don’t know why I decided to make a change--something sparked--from living in my new community, it has hit me that this was a new beginning. I didn’t want to hide who I truly was, how I’m avoiding others is what’s holding me back all these years. In a flash, I met people, spoke without a problem and laughed till I cried. They weren’t tears of a failure but of someone who has finally found out who they really were and with that sense of relief, I saw purpose. Not only did I figure out the missing puzzle to my life, I’m able to relate with people that I believed was very unlikely. Now in becoming seventeen, I’m awarded with friends that I never had before which are currently what I cherish most along with both my side and my stepfather’s side of the family. Learning about oneself is a mystery for everyone to figure out, and it’s a difficult process to go through when you, yourself, don’t know how to go about it. It’s not the same as a biologist would do from studying an animal from afar, observing how they would go on their days and developing a theory on why. You don’t have to go through the journey alone, the ones I’m close with have helped shape me into who I’ve become: outgoing, caring, loud. Life always has its ups and downs, yet it’s how you go through it that defines who you are. Until I can no longer speak, I need to communicate with no restrictions, and always be happy even with the little things no matter how many times someone tries to bring me down. I’ll forever stand.