All my life my family has been worried about me turning out like my biological mom or like my older brother. So much so that I began to think I was them. But I now realize that I’m not them…I never was and I never will be. Drugs, lying, and stealing. That’s not me. I’m not a bully and liar like my older brother and I won’t choose drugs over family like my mother. For the longest time I had no idea who I really was but I do now. I’m loud. I’m funny. I’m caring and smart. I can be obnoxious sometimes but that’s me. Most importantly I am NOT them. I’m mean and I’m not selfish. I’m my own person with my own thoughts and opinions and that’s something I sometimes struggle to remember. In middle school I was constantly compared to my older brother. I was known for being his little sister and it had really gotten to me. I was never even given the chance to prove to everyone that I was nothing like him. Teachers and students just assumed since I was his sister I would be just like him and was as bad as he was. It took me years to finally realize that I wasn’t like my brother just because people who have not taken the chance to get to know me said I was. No matter what they say I am not him. I don’t always make the best decisions but the decisions I do make are my own. Not my brothers and not my mothers. I’m friendly, generous, thoughtful, silly, and can sometimes be way too forgiving for my own good but that is who I am. Who I am right now has always been the real me. People don’t change. How someone is and how they act is who they are and is who they will always be. That’s another belief of mine. People do not change. Yes sometimes people can get a little lost from their true selves but a person can’t change for the better or for the worst. Especially not when someone asks them to change. You cannot force someone to be something or someone they are not. So with my beliefs in my mind I strongly believe that I am not my brother and I strongly believe that I am not my mother. I believe that I cannot turn out like them because that’s not who I am and it never will be. That is not who I was when I was in middle school, it is not who I am in high school, it’s not who I will be in college and it will not be who I am later in my life. So to all my middle school teachers and to everyone who tried to bring me down my whole life, you were wrong. Because no matter what you say or what you think or even what you feel….
I AM NOT THEM!