My Summer of Self-Discovery - My Essay for the Free Press

My Summer of Self-Discovery

With the promise of a foreseeable future, we allow ourselves to breathe without progress, to beat on, as the same person we were yesterday. Our inability to see the entire picture prohibits us from seeing a better tomorrow, a better us. Sometimes in life you have to row through a few oceans of turmoil in order to get to your paradise. This summer, through a new business, a quaint fine arts camp, and required reading I was able to discover myself in a new light and learn a thing or two about the world I am so blessed to take part in.
If you’ve lost sight of what your typical fourteen year olds girl does with her summer vacation, allow me to give you a run-down. June includes an eccentric, raunchy beach party to celebrate the freedom high school insures. July consists of dates in ice cream parlors in teeny tiny clothing, maybe experimenting with alcohol for her first time, and of course more parties on the beach. August is where all the Facebook posts come flooding in like a social media tidal wave about how anxious she as well as her growing group of friends are to start high school and how she hopes to find the ‘perfect guy’. Now, allow me to give you an even briefer rundown of my summer. I constructed business development plans, executive summaries, arranged and held meetings, assigned tasks, wrote computer coding functions, all to start my very own business. It was a reality check more than anything. The real world certainly made me go a little crazy, but sometimes a touch of insanity allows oneself to learn things you wouldn’t have come face to face with if you hadn’t stepped on the wild side of life for once. Or in my case, inside my 3 X 3 cubicle. Through this experience I was able to learn the hard lesson of ownership. If the business failed, it was on me. If it was successful, it was also on me. Being taught humility and ownership at the same time is honestly one of the most beneficial experiences in my life. Through this unique opportunity Silk Route Global Inc. was able to give me, I became self-knowledgeable in the sense I knew how hard I could be pushed. And to think, I learned all these virtues, all these treasures, without having to go to any parties or wear certain clothing or have a boyfriend.
If any of you have ever been to summer camp than you know its principles. Meeting new people, ghost stories, grotesque camp food, rehearsals, flashlight time, and up most importantly, S’mores. This summer I had the opportunity to spend twelve days at Blue Lakes Fine Arts Camp. Hours before check-in time I had one of those moments. Those moments in which you’re not happy with who you are, what you look like, how you’re portrayed, what others think of you, what you think of yourself – none of it you are happy with. Now, I’m not one to wallow and muck-around in self-pity, but it was just one of those moments. Now that camp is over, I can whole-heartedly say I am a comprehensibly different person. Going to a camp where everyone values music and writing the way I do taught me the lesson of being confident in who you are, and just because one group of people don’t value you for being you, doesn’t mean a different group won’t. I’ve always been an independent learner, and being away from my family and my electronics for twelve days was truly liberating in a way. It showed me that life is happening right now, outside of all our screens. Self-discovery doesn’t mean you’re getting to know yourself for the first time. It’s not you looking in the mirror and thinking “Oh why hello there, who is this? What’s your favorite color?” it’s self-rediscovery. I was able to rediscover who I truly was at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, a lesson all of us needs to pay tribute to.
If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m a bit of a nerd. (If you seriously haven’t noticed than I thank you, quite graciously). I’m the aberrant kind of kid who adores school. When I found out I was one of the select incoming freshman who would be enrolled in Honors tenth grade language arts, I was quite skeptical, to say in the least. I mean, I love writing, but was I any good? We received a summer reading assignment, and you didn’t even have to tell me it was mandatory. I had the felicity to read The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye, and words alone cannot express how perfect these novels fit into my life. Almost at the end of my summer of self-discovery, I got to read two novels in which the characters also discover themselves. Jay Gatsby discovered our futures dip into our pasts, excavating only the purest and most crucial of moments. And in this he taught me not to forget the people, the struggles, the experiences of my past, for they are an altered version of my future. Holden Caulfield discovered that it’s okay to fall down in life; we were put here to test the strength needed to push ourselves back up. From this I learned that, rare as they are, authenticity and genuineness are two of the best things in society, and that proving yourself to anyone but yourself is a waste of time. I owe my own self-discovery to two fictional characters, lifetimes away, yet right here within me.
I think, no matter what age you are, you’re always going to have that one summer. Maybe it’s the summer you got your first kiss, your driver’s license, your first job out of college. Maybe it’s the summer you stood up for yourself, or went on a life-changing road trip. This was my summer. It was so much more than parties and boys and Facebook posts. It was self-discovery. These lessons were not easily obtainable, yet they’ll eternally be treasured. Now, as you all know, no matter how many lessons you’ve learned, no matter how many hills or desserts or oceans you’ve crossed, there’s always going to be more to endeavor. Like Gatsby who believed in the green light, and Holden who caught kids from falling off that cliff into adulthood, I’m beating on with purpose, and breathing with a vision. Lessons cannot be counted, for perfection isn’t ever going to be reached. Sure, I discovered myself, but I sure as heck won’t remember to unload the dishwasher tomorrow. But that’s a lesson for tomorrow.