Creativity has always followed me quietly.
It showed up in the playlists I made at midnight, the hobbies I picked up and abandoned, and the way I turned ordinary moments into stories in my head. For a long time, being imaginative felt like the only part of myself that I completely understood.What I did not understand as easily was my identity.
Being imaginative made me both an optimist and a dreamer; but it also distanced me from reality at times. I created detailed versions of how I thought my life was supposed to look. However, when things failed to match, it felt like the world was ending. As a freshman who grew up watching “High School Musical” countless times, I entered high school believing it would unfold like the perfectly written storyline I had created in my head. In my mind, high school meant dances, friend groups, cheer, romance, and unforgettable moments. Moments that all were happening in very specific ways that I had already imagined before they ever happened. I had everything planned out constantly.
With that mindset, I unknowingly set myself up for failure. Whenever things didn’t happen the way I had pictured them, it felt as though my entire plan had fallen apart. After moving to San Diego my junior year, I took a break from cheerleading to focus on academics after a hip injury. This was already a bump in my plan, as much as I wanted to be on the team, despite wanting to continue my sport, it didn’t fit in with my schedule since the team’s practice was a set class during school. I felt like a core piece of what I thought my identity was stripped. Into my senior year, when moving back to Albany, I was hit with the news that I couldn’t rejoin my previous team for my final senior year. As dramatic as it sounds, I have always been a dramatic person. I felt everything deeply because I had already spent so much time imagining what those moments were supposed to mean to me.
I carried that mindset with me for a long time, believing a plan’s failure meant failure to myself and others around me instead of understanding that life was never meant to follow a story I created in my head. At the end of the day, I’m beginning to learn that everything is not in my control. Instead, I’m learning to follow the natural route that life, the universe, or some other being has planned out for me.
