“To Be”

Jeremiah Martin

We all want to be accepted. Be, included. Be, not alone. As a child, our caregivers tell us what we can be. A doctor, a lawyer, a C average student. Yet, when we become teenagers, we begin to think for ourselves and who we aspire to be. In the teen years, isolation begins. New thought patterns emerge, along with growth spurts that I missed out on. With our change in thinking comes a change of being. We learn who the cool kids are, and if you don’t know any cool kids, then you may not be one of them. As teens, we think we should wear our hair a certain way, buy the newest trendy clothes, or even listen to certain types of music; even though we highly dislike the subject matter. All of these exclusions carry on with us into college and adulthood where we find less and less people to relate to, which the nerd in me wants to make a wordplay joke and claim that the previous statement is relative. We are all placed in our own boxes based on stereotypes, cultural upbringing, socioeconomic status, internet access, and anything else that can visibly divide us. As a non-traditional college student, I felt all of the burdens of being alone. The classroom was my only home away from home, and just as we sometimes want to leave certainty, we remain isolated in comfortability.