The Real Me

                Walking across the Convention Center stage in my oversized golden graduation gown, I looked into the crowd of my peers and smiled. It was finally happening that I was leaving the one place where I couldn’t be myself. The high school was the only place where I felt pain. I was too afraid to show people the real me. I was too afraid to be unique and stand out. I cared too much about what people thought of me. And it controlled my life.

The thing is I wasn’t like those really shy people. I let everyone know that I knew the answer to a math question and I let them think I was brilliant. When in reality, it took me twenty minutes to get the answer to that question. I didn’t like getting up in front of the class to present a project or to answer a question. Sometimes my nerves got so bad that I would speak really fast and not breathe. Other times, I would shake uncontrollably. I hated having all eyes on me.  It felt like I was being watched.

I lived my life the way I thought fit me best. I was an outsider during school but at home I was myself. I had no confidence and I had no desire to obtain it. I didn’t know what I would do with myself if I had confidence and someone took it away from me. So, instead, I had none. Someone can’t take something away from you when you never had it in the first place, right? But I didn’t feel bad about myself, either.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fighting an extensive war with being overweight. I can’t recall a time when I was made fun of because I was chubbier than the other girls. Throughout high school, I can’t count on my fingers how many different diets I tried. It was pretty pitiful. I counted calories, I counted fat, and I counted carbs! You name it, I counted it. And then I got an iPhone. I got the Lose It! app and lost five pounds in two weeks. Not too shabby, eh? But it didn’t last long. I got too lazy to exercise or worry about calories. In March of senior year, I signed up for weight watchers and lost twenty pounds in a month. It was absolutely amazing. I felt better about myself. But with finals and graduation, stress eating became my hobby. I gained ten of my twenty-five pounds back. I felt disgusting. My parents were disappointed in me for giving up and not trying hard enough. But I was more disappointed in myself for letting them down.