“Being the third sister out of four girls, I could not define myself at school without being referred to in the context of my family. Choate meant that nobody knew who I was and that I could establish myself as my own person. I could be anonymous. I was surprised to find out in my first year of Choate that these feelings of inadequacy did not disappear. I cried about my grade in world history, called myself talentless, and developed anxiety that made it hard for me to participate in class. I lacked external pressure and the person who made me suffer most was myself. Two terms in, I hadn’t really found the answers to these questions and I felt lost. I didn’t know who I was or how to define myself.
When the pandemic hit, I had the opportunity to go home and take myself out of the Choate equation. The fast paced life of Choate was put on hold, and I was able to take a deep breath. I spent a lot of time alone and I recognized I had only escaped my problems momentarily by choosing to switch schools sophomore year. I read books, I spent a lot of time at the beach, and I connected with my friends from home. Life was extremely dull, but it was this dullness that allowed me to look at the world around me in a new light. I was thankful to be alive and I was reminded that my unique existence was simply a gift in itself.
When I returned to Choate the following year, life was similar. I had a balanced junior year and a stableness in my life I had never experienced before. I could get close to eight hours of sleep almost every night and I had never been closer to a group of girls at school. We found comfort in each other as we spent every night in West Wing together due to the pandemic and I made a lifelong friendship with a sophomore named Ixchel. I vividly remember her and I sitting in my room together looking out the window and viewing the lights in town together. We imagined we were on a snowy mountain and I felt an internal peace like no other. We wondered when life would turn back to normalcy and to some extent I feared it. Would I return to my state of restlessness and feel miserable?
Honestly speaking, the start of this senior year was extremely difficult for me. I didn’t know how to transition back from pandemic life to a comparatively normal one. As I looked at everyone around me, I questioned if anyone felt the same way. I felt the negativity weighing down on me because I could not readjust to life the way that those around me had. Anxiety made me isolate myself and I couldn’t control my emotions. I finally gathered the courage to ask for help and attend therapy and I felt a weight off my shoulders. While it’s not spoken about often, I recognized that Choate is not always sunshine. It is not recognized that although we are extremely privileged to attend a school like this one, we are asked to sacrifice a lot as well. We live in a place where we cannot separate work and play. We worry about college as if it were an existential crisis and sacrifice our free time.
The way one maintains their sanity at Choate is the people around us. I don’t necessarily think I am leaving Choate with a love for the institution itself, but rather the faces around me who have changed me in immeasurable ways. It was through conversations with my friends that I saw the beauty in the world around me. They made me realize that it is okay to live a life without an exact purpose. A meaningful life is one where you do the things that you love. If you try to put yourself in boxes and establish an exact purpose for life, you will never be able to grow. I also began to understand that I needed to take life less seriously. It was okay to go to bed super late because you were having a funny conversation with your prefectees and it was okay to laugh when you did badly on a test you thought you did great at.
I began to start thinking about forgiveness and moving on from the past. I forgave myself more often and I saw that mistakes are part of being human. It is okay to be a work in progress. I am working everyday to better myself and become better for the people around me. I leave here knowing that I did exactly what I wanted. Through going to Choate, I realized that I was my own person and what I found was tons of capacities inside of me. The most important message I leave with is that you are more capable than you think and to follow your own unique path. Be who you are because it is our differences that make us as a community whole.”
