I feel like middle school is an awkward and slightly painful time for everyone. The second you leave those doors on your last day of 8th grade, you rarely choose to look back. Over time, it just starts to seem like a bad dream. One of the things that makes middle school so painful is the overwhelming desire to “fit in”. Despite my mom telling me to “be my own person” and to “do what makes me happy” my thirteen year old mind completely disregarded this advice. Being my own person made me different, different meant that I would stick out, and sticking out would deem me as a social pariah. I grew up on Staten Island (yes, the forgotten borough that’s not really a borough). I lived on the north shore where the average income was lower than that of the south shore. Which generally meant that everything on the south shore was a lot nicer looking than the north shore: the houses, the playgrounds, and especially the schools. So you can imagine my mother’s excitement when my grades landed me the opportunity to attend a school on the south shore. I was proud of my accomplishment, but all of my friends lived on the north shore. So not only was I an anxious middle schooler that wanted to fit in, the fact that I was going into middle school by myself was really the cherry on top. It soon became my mission to fit in at all costs.

There’s something I forgot to mention about the south shore. Almost everyone that lives on that side is caucasion. Which meant that almost everyone in my school was caucasion. Which meant that my dark brown eyes and curly brown hair didn’t really blend in with their pin straight blonde hair and blue eyes. I remember going to school with my naturally curly hair one day. Omg, your hair is so curly. You look so ethnic, what are you? To which I replied, “I’m hispanic.” Ohhh, so you’re like Mexican? “No, I’m Puerto Rican.” Ugh whatever, it’s the same thing. I had never had someone say anything like that to me before. I had never heard such ignorance in my life. I was completely speechless and my face burned with anger and embarrassment. Not embarrassment for her, but embarrassed for being Puerto Rican. I’m even more ashamed of what I did next. I was going try and erase any other part of me that looked hispanic. Like I said, I wanted to fit in at all costs. I couldn’t change my eye color, but I could change up my hair to make it blend in with theirs to avoid any unnecessary attention. Thus began the years of heat damage my hair would endure.

I would wash my hair every Sunday and completely straighten it. My room always smelled like heat protectant, hair spray, and just the general stench of something burning. Throughout the week I would touch up my roots and fry any pieces that dared to be anything but flat. Day after day, week after week, year after year. My hair became so dry and brittle but I didn’t care because it was as straight as Megan’s and Ashley’s. My mom always warned me about how damaged my hair would become. She begged me to at least give my hair a break for a week or two in between. But me being the stubborn kid I was disregarded her requests. My hair was brittle, dry, and extremely frizzy but it was straight and that’s all that mattered. I continued to fry my hair up until my sophomore year of highschool. At that point, my hair was so damaged that clumps of hair would break off whenever I washed my it. But it’s okay though, I fit in. This is what I wanted, right?

We’ve reached the part in our story where I’m supposed to tell you that I got over my “wanting to fit in” phase and that I finally learned to just be myself and embrace my heritage. Well, I’m not going to because that would be lying and lying is wrong. Truth is, I’m 18 years old and even now I still care about other people’s perspectives. It’s sad, but it’s also the truth. I changed my clothes, burned the everliving crap out of my hair, felt rejected by my family members because apparently I started “acting too white” around them. This isn’t a Disney movie where everything works out in the end, this is life and in life, it just be like that sometimes. Shit happens. You learn to deal with it. Life moves on.