To Put a Person On Paper

April, 2025

Introduction

In my twenty-one years, I have had many thoughts and opinions, trials and failures, loves and losses; everything that makes a young adult obnoxious and think that they know everything. This essay is a portrait of me through various stages of life. I wanted to go mostly chronologically and focus on topics that mean the most to me or have had the largest impact on my growth. As I wrote, my ideas changed and the story flew in so many different directions. Here is the final product.

On Quitting

The day before my fourth birthday I proudly declared that I would be giving up my pacifier– for good. My parents probably laughed, mildly enthused by the idea, with no real conviction. I’m sure they wanted me to stop using it; it was bad for your teeth, they had discovered, but there was no way that after four years strong of suckling this teet-like rubber thing I could quit it just upon announcement. But I did. I never put a binky in my mouth again, and likely haven’t touched one since, although it does seem likely that devilish four-year-old me did something or other to mess with my sister’s pacifier. 

I quit basketball at ten, trumpet at twelve, my dream of being an architect at thirteen when I learned that you had to do a lot of math to do the job the same week I failed a geometry test. These failures gave me the false sense of security that I did not have an addictive personality, something that would prove false years later when I knew what the word meant, and knew better than to adhere to it. 

On Mothers and Sisters

My family is rather matriarchal. Sure, there is the typical sexism that comes with every close-knit, large, semi-dysfunctional family, what with whispers of “is Lauren married yet?” contrasted with “did you hear about Daniel’s big promotion?” However, there is a truth in mine that is institutionalized in my bones: women are always right. Whether it came from my mom or my mom’s mom, or some old twisted adage from my mom’s mom’s mom, they had the final say over all important matters. I was seven years old in the backseat of my family car when my parents got into one of the worst fights of their marriage. While I can’t recall the exact details, I remember crying in my booster seat, which ended up silencing my parents who had only then noticed how their actions affected me. Quickly, and with the precision of having been knocked down a few too many times, my father said “I’m sorry. You’re right.” This concession did nothing to comfort me at the time, as even my young, undeveloped mind knew that the argument would resume once my sister and I left the car. It did, however, give me the expectation that men will apologize in life. I could not have been more wrong.

I grew up in my sister’s shadow, which was a feat in and of itself since I am two years older than her and thus should have been the one to establish dominance and aptitude first. Nevertheless, she was always smarter than me, prettier than me, more popular than me. She had a boyfriend before I’d ever been kissed and the only negative note in her report card was “socialize less.” While I was always told that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, when she took after me in wearing shorts from the boys’ department in elementary school and started hating the color pink like I did, I was reprimanded. My grandmother told me to stop influencing her, we’re both girls, we should like girly things. Elementary school me wanted to retort and make her define girly things, but I already knew what she meant: everything that wasn’t me. 

On Decentering Men

I forgot to include a father’s section. 

On Dieting

I used to work out just in case I went home with someone. It was better to sacrifice sleep than risk being embarrassed by my own body, or worse, having someone else be embarrassed of it on my behalf. I would spiral, picturing faces of girls I hadn’t met yet contorted in disgust at an extra few pounds of belly fat. For a while it felt like I had this big secret pinned across my torso, one that you couldn’t necessarily tell until my clothes were gone. Best case scenario was that they had a surprisingly good time with the “big girl.” Emphasis on surprising– my self-esteem really was that low. 

I sorted out my exercise habits within a few years of being a so-called adult after many trips to the pharmacy to purchase unneeded laxatives and many now-deleted diet apps. I got consistent; I lifted weights, I had protein powder, and I didn’t go for runs until I passed out. I had a fear of my body being my own, of years passing me by with no definitive end but endless definites. All of that changed when I got in a relationship. I stopped having a consistent routine, the hour a day allotted for cardio replaced by sex and sleep. I stopped caring about what my body looked like– it was winter, after all, and the only person who was seeing my shape had already decided it was adequate enough to bed. So I quit healthy living. 

On Positivity

Lately I have been responding to the basic question of “how are you?” with an even simpler “I’m okay.” Saying I’m good would be a lie, and anything further than okay would be grounds for probing, or worse yet, annoying the asker who had meant it only as a peasantry. The truth is I have been facing a cliche sense of existential dread my entire life, only now amplified by my upcoming graduation and entrance into what they call “the real world.” So, how am I? I am terrified. I am terrified of the state of politics, I am terrified of global warming and the oncoming collapse of western civilization, I am terrified that everyone I love will one day leave me in some way or another, I am terrified that I have so many dreams in my life that I will accomplish none of them. But you can’t say that to a stranger or to your best friend. So I say I am okay. I am trying to be an actively positive person, which outwardly I have been able to achieve. Now it is time to reach inward and transfer the energy that I try to exude unto others into myself. 

Ode to Mortality

One day everyone we have ever known will be dead. When I die I want to be a tree. I want to become life in a new form, a better form, one that gives to the world instead of takes. It’s not my fault that we live in an apocalyptic state where my daily resource consumption is equivalent to a lifetime’s worth of someone one hundred years ago. 

I hope that I am planted in a forest. I hope that other trees surround me, maybe my family, my friends, loved ones, whoever that is when it’s the time to go. I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife, I want to, of course. The idea of eternal life has never scared me— you can ask my high school friends who frequently heard me say I would willingly let Edward Cullen turn me— but finding out the truth terrifies me. 

When I was eight I had to get four teeth pulled. I woke up, and the first thought I had was “heaven isn’t real.” While that sounds dramatic, little me experienced something in my general anesthetic state that I never had before: total nothingness. It’s a feeling that I have dreaded, and chased, ever since. 

I hope that my tree intertwines with the roots around me, I hope we all hold each other forever— you, me, your best friend and mine. All of us, bound in eternity, or until they cut us down to build a parking lot. 

Today I noticed the wrinkle at the top of my forehead had etched itself in further, ever so slightly, so that it would torture no one but me. I am a very expressive person, and I believe in the positive aging movement, but now that it’s my turn I’m terrified. Will I be beautiful when I turn gray? Should I get preventative Botox now? I know someone whose mom made her start at 12. I love how crows’ feet look on other people. 

I have procrastinated writing this paper. I think I have done this because it is my last assignment of my college undergrad experience. This time last year I cried about being a rising senior; I wasn’t ready for it to all end. I cried on Church Street the other day after a long night out full of tequila sodas and missed calls. I work at a bookstore, and for some idiotic reason I decided to read “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” first thing in the morning. Needless to say, I was an emotional wreck the rest of that sunny Saturday. I was struck with a feeling even more painful than the thought of moving on: acceptance.

Ode to Hair

My hair has been my pride and joy for as long as I can remember. I came out of the womb with a full mess of brown curls and it quickly became my signifier. My mother would put me in pigtails and braids, flaunting what I already had to the other mothers of two-year olds whose heads were still peachy and buzzed. I got a short haircut in third grade. It was the first time I cried about my appearance. I went to school in a ponytail the day after, ashamed to show people the big chop, fearful of what they would say, and terrified of what they would think. It rested just a few inches above my shoulders, but it rocked my world and I started using straightening shampoo soon thereafter. 

We had a swimming pool in my middle school, so once a month every other day eleven to thirteen year olds were forced to undergo swim lessons, much to the delight of the boys who enjoyed splashing around in chlorinated pee, and much to the chagrin of the girls, including myself, who dreaded the drying-off process after. Everyone would go to the showers immediately after, stripping and cleansing with the ease of newborn foals beginning to gallop. I never showered after the pool. Instead, I went into the private changing rooms, and if those were full the slimy, mud-ridden, germ-filled bathroom would receive my timid body. Either way, the lock was the first thing I touched. I was ostracizing myself, creating a dichotomy of me versus them that nobody else had even thought to perpetrate. I couldn’t let these perfect, preened, privileged pre-teens from Fairfield County, Connecticut see me for who I really was, not yet. 

I had hair under my armpits by then already, and I was starting to sprout more on my legs and, tragically, on my stomach. Like I needed anything else to be insecure about there. So, I changed in private, ashamed to show the very thing that makes us human. One day after swim lessons the creepy gym teacher (because every school has to have one) complimented my hair, saying that some people pay for blowouts like mine. I blushed, and tried to shrink myself behind some of the other girls who I knew had just spent the last thirty minutes actually blowing out their hair, sacrificing more than half of our allotted lunch time for the sake of beauty. But there I was, hiding myself and my hair from everyone, while that was the very thing that brought me positive attention. 

I cut my hair really short again at the beginning of college. For a week it gave me the most intense gender euphoria I have ever felt— I could truly express myself and my budding sexuality. I was eighteen, after all, and the “hey mamas” craze was at its peak. However, as time went on and the compliments dwindled, I hated it more and more. The haircut also happened to coincide with my growing cheeks, as I had naively succumbed to the freshman 15, a phenomenon I thought was fake until I experienced and eventually surpassed it. My face was round and my hair was short. My belly was full and hairy. I didn’t recognize myself, and I hated it. I would gorge myself on late night munchies— it was the first time I was consistently smoking weed, and the first time I had the freedom to access highly processed foods with additives and trans fats— and throw it back up, trying to force my self-hatred out of my mouth. 

My hair grew and I lost weight. My friends and I were playing a drinking game once where we had to all go around and say what each of our “hottest” features were. Everyone said my hair. 

I judge time by my hair. Its growth, its color— I’ve dyed it a few too many times for its own good— its placement on my body, its texture, its curls or lack thereof. I judge it by the strays I find on my shower walls and the hairballs under my bed. The blonde pieces that must have come from someone I loved long ago, and the pink ones that turn up every now and then on my lover’s side of the bed. I chew on it when I’m anxious and twirl it when I’m flirting. I flip it out of my eyes in the heat, during sex, when I’m doing the occasional push up to prove I’m still in shape. I put my bangs in front of my eyes to look hot, and pin them back to look smart. I have taken this thing that has caused me so much strife (to be dramatic) and utilized it— no, weaponized— to create a semblance of outward confidence.

Ode to Pride

I’m skipping down the street because I’m excited for a world that is not yet written. 

I texted my mom tonight.

I sent her a picture of me from my first day of kindergarten. Here’s how the conversation went:

Me: I want to go back to this.

Mom: Let’s do it all over again! I would and hug you constantly and read to you every night—like I did the first time.❤️

Me: Stop im gonna cry

Mom: Me too, I made myself cry.

Me:  Well I can’t cry, I’m at work.

Mom: I made me cry and I’m also at work. This is an emotional time with you graduating next week.

Me: Thanks mama.

[Three hours later]

Me: I just reread your text and started crying again

Mom: Oh honey. I feel the same way. How wonderful that we treasure our lives together. The joy of my heart is that it has never wavered. When you are home next, let’s watch princess diaries and I’ll read to you as you (or me) falls asleep. I love you with all my heart.

Oh, and you are no longer in kindergarten. You are amazing you! You are going to carve a beautiful path for your life!

You need to trust yourself as you go forward. You are talented, have worthy values, and a killer dimple! You are going to be better than fine—joyful and purposeful! That’s my wish for you

…

I’m proud of a lot more than I usually give myself credit for. Part of it is humility, the other is hubris. That is to say, I, rather secretly as every nose-picker and tax-evader privatizes themselves, often believe that I am the smartest in the room, but never do I want anyone to know that I think that. By remaining silent in certain conversations where I have the knowledge to brown-nose a situation, I have allowed someone else to take the forefront of the conversation. How selfless am I.

On My Best Friend 

Everything I did used to be tied to her. It wasn’t strenuous; it was natural. Whenever I eat chocolate cherries I think of her, and almost every time I eat two. I finished my last box today, it was the sixth since we had bought our first together; it was the third since she moved out. I thought that if I kept eating them I would fill a void, and then I thought that it would finally make me cry. Instead, it brought me solace. I accept that you are no longer here, even if you are just a three hour drive away, I accept that neither of us have made nearly the effort we begged on our knees for and promised in hot breaths. I accept that we may never experience nights on the living room floor together, a bottle of barefoot wine between us and Broad City blaring in the background to drown out our undying and never-enacted love for each other. We were never together, not like that, but she’s my one true love, my True Blue, my one and only. If she said runaway I would, and if she said forever waited for us on the other side I would follow you off that bridge. 

But that’s not the case because we both know we would self-destruct. We would never work, like the Titanic was destined to crash and the Challenger to explode. We would eat at each other until there was nothing left; no bones, no skin, not even a fly to pick at our remains. Our guts would fall out on top of each other, and in the wreckage our brains might fight and our souls dance as the last remaining lights in my eyes dwindle away as the wind hits the willows and all expectations for change sink into oblivion. The petals on the cherry blossom will fall, too, eventually. And when it does I will be right beside you, collecting the droppings and scrapbooking them for our future that we will never have. Not together, at least.

Revelations that we’ve all had but I hope you will agree with 

I never want to grow up, and never have.  

Beauty is not skin deep, but appearance is not superficial.

Treat others how you want to be treated, but don’t put more effort in than you are getting back. 

Love thy neighbor.