In English class we wrote essays, in which we took the prompt “Who am I?” and translated it into a written piece. I revised this essay many times, and eventually used a version of it for my Common Application for college. I feel like I answered this question well enough for the word limit I was given. My life, identity, and the lessons I’ve learned have been put into this essay with a lot of heart. Initially while writing this essay, I did not want to reveal too much, but eventually, I decided that I wanted to let go of any limits. My edits included changing the story up a little bit, restructuring, and wording it more concise and adding my own voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As my mother was loading the dishwasher, she nonchalantly said, \u201cI have nothing against gay people, but I\u2019m glad both of my children are straight\u201d.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t know why, but this didn\u2019t sit well with me<\/strong>. For years, I hid who I was \u2013 from the world and myself<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Never confident, I never piped up during class discussions in fear of saying the wrong thing. I walked quickly through the halls with my head down, in fear that I\u2019d be perceived at all. I didn\u2019t want to care about what other people thought of me, but it was all I worried about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would only give my parents bits and pieces of my life. Anything that could garner any judgment <\/strong>or negative attention, I kept under wraps. Sometimes I had weird thoughts about girls, and I ignored them. I kept myself straight. When I couldn\u2019t hold the feelings inside anymore, I told a few close friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My desire for self-expression<\/strong> led me to apply to a summer film program. I met other students on an online forum prior to camp, and they conducted themselves with confidence. This sparked my own confidence, since I didn\u2019t have to talk to anyone in person. When I got there, I was greeted with praise, and people thought that I was cool, which had never happened before. When packing my bags, I wanted people to know that I was queer through my clothing. I dyed my hair (half-blonde, half-black) halfway through camp. For my thesis film, I interviewed other people who were also dyeing their hair; my newfound friends were dyeing<\/em> to escape the constraints of their own<\/em> restrictive households.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, I shopped in the boy\u2019s section for the first time. I felt free being away from my parents. My identity had never been fully expressed, and now (in Santa Clarita, California), it was. Up until that point, everything had been chosen for me by my parents. Pursuing film was the first real choice I had made for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Film captures people\u2019s identities<\/strong>, and I was capturing my own as a queer filmmaker<\/strong>. I walked through the halls with my head up. Someone even approached me in the bathroom about a film I had screened. Through film, I was starting to find my voice \u2013 the stories I want to tell. Here, I was heard. In the end, I loved who I was at camp, and I didn\u2019t want to go back home. At home, because my parents couldn\u2019t understand those types of differences, they would worry they couldn\u2019t protect me anymore from others\u2019 judgments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the airport, I descended the escalator wearing a purple cropped blazer, pink corduroy pants, and multicolored heart-shaped sunglasses atop my newly colored hair. Around my neck hung the California Art Scholar medallion that I\u2019d received upon graduating. Along with this medallion came fresh ideas about my identity and my unique filmmaking style that I wanted to share with the world; most of all, my world at home. My dad did not recognize me at first. When he eventually did, he was surprised, but not disapproving. \u201cYou really look like an art student now,\u201d<\/em> he said as we loaded my luggage into the car. This reaction gave me hope for my mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I arrived home, my mom disapproved<\/strong> of my new image, but I held onto it tightly. Every day, I think about who I was at camp, even though I can\u2019t be the full version of myself at home. My mom saw my unwavering perseverance<\/strong>, and while she didn\u2019t accept it completely, she did help me dye the blonde side of my hair purple.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Acceptance will take time, and sometimes it\u2019s hard to see things change from what we are used to. I want to live in a world where I can feel safe expressing my true identity, the way that I did when I was at camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Intro In English class we wrote essays, in which we took the prompt “Who am I?” and translated it into a written piece. I revised this essay many times, and eventually used a version of it for my Common Application for college. I feel like I answered this question well enough for the word limit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-686","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~FionaL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~FionaL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~FionaL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~FionaL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~FionaL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~FionaL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":687,"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~FionaL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/686\/revisions\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~FionaL\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}