Everyone feels pressure to fit in. Everyone looks back on yearbook photos with disgust. And everyone is self-conscious about one thing or another.

I am no exception to this. After looking at many old pictures of haircuts that can only be described as horrendous and the multiple layers of shorts over leopard-patterned capris, I can very easily come to the conclusion that I wasn’t the most fashionable kid. 

However, there is a significant difference between who I was and who I am now. Besides the poorly matched fabrics, I had felt no pressure to be like everyone else. I was loud; I gave my biggest smile in every photo; I dressed how I wanted to; and I wasn’t afraid of what people would think. 

Now, I monitor my volume; I smile with my mouth closed; and I dress in a way that’s just good enough to look nice but not to make me stand out. 

I care what people think about me.

Seven-year-old me, the raging feminist who believed that all things girly were gross, would be ashamed of who I’ve become. I may have grown as a person since elementary school, but I can’t say that all of the changes were good ones. The part of me that could walk into school with an infinity scarf on died. Along the way, some of me died with her. 

I’m no longer the girl who belts karaoke at the top of her lungs and who speaks before thinking. I’ve become someone who stays quiet and out of the way and overthinks every little thing I say; I’m convinced people will hate me for a conversation we had two years ago where I made the tiniest slip-up.

I can’t say that I didn’t have any fears or worries at that age as much as that’s how I wish to view my past. I mostly remember those days as stress-free, but that doesn’t do justice to the fact that I wore shorts over capris because I was teased about my knees for a skin condition I couldn’t control. It doesn’t change that there was a time when I didn’t have any friends, and I would sit at recess by myself.

It was easy to attribute all the bad things that happened to me, to my personality, and who I was, and that’s what I did. I convinced myself that if I kept tweaking and changing things, eventually, people would like me, and I wouldn’t be the one sitting alone because I would be at a table full of people.

It worked.

I sacrificed part of who I was, the weird unlikable part that led to me being teased. I sacrificed the loud, vibrant part of me that didn’t care what anyone else thought. I sacrificed my style and my love for individuality in replacement of uniformity and fitting it.

I found that people would like me more if I had fewer opinions and if I was less outspoken, so I became that person. I became the person I would’ve hated. I could say I despise that this is what it’s come to or that I wish I could go back to how it was, but in all honesty, I would make the same sacrifices just to stay where I am now. 

I can only hope that little me is still there, deep down. My own self-doubt is burying her ebullient and exuberant personality. But maybe, just maybe, appreciating her confidence and ability to be careless is what I need. Just because I grew up doesn’t mean she died, and rediscovering her exultancy may not be as laborious as it seems.