I attended Dekalb School of the Arts from 2019 to 2022. In that time, I was surrounded by a predominantly queer and predominantly black community who taught me so much about diversity, ally-ship, and community. They challenged my views on the world, helped me learn to fight for myself and my peers, and helped me prepare to take on the world with open eyes and an open heart. During my time in high school, I was also in an interracial relationship. It taught me so much about his life perspective and how both our relationship and the life that he leads affected him every single day. I knew that I could never fully understand his life as a black person, and I made sure that I took every opportunity I could to learn from him and educate the people in my own life who were not privy to the knowledge or education themselves of the hardships that came with the life of a person of color in America. I had long discussions with my father to relay the information I learned from my peers and black educators, purchased books to better understand my own white privilege, ensured I always listened to the perspective of my friends and peers of color, and tried my best to use my platform and privilege to lift others' voices up. During high school, I discovered that I was queer and spent my upperclassmen years navigating different facets of my identity. From a young age, I have advocated for the queer people in my life and felt a strong connection with them. My cousins have identified as queer for years, and I have always found myself surrounded by friends who are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. There are people in my life such as relatives and guardians who have spoken poorly or ignorantly about queer people, usually fueled by religious beliefs, political affiliations, or pure lack of knowledge. Since I first learned what it meant to be queer, I used my voice, research, and knowledge to attempt to educate these people in my life. I stood with my queer friends and family before I discovered my own identity, using both my voice and my social media platform to educate and stick up for the LGBT community. When I discovered I was queer myself, I didn't stop advocating. I attended parades, walk-outs, and rallies. I partook in discussions with people who viewed differently than I did. When I discovered that I was transgender, I immersed myself in trans-friendly spaces and attended the Atlanta Pride Parade. When hateful protestors made their way into the park, I followed them around to spread love to everyone they tried to harass. My eighth grade year, my friends and I organized a school walk-out to protest gun violence and easy access to guns, spreading awareness about school shootings after our own school was put under threat. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to make a difference in the world.

In June of 2020, I was preparing to train for a summer program that might have changed my life. My biggest goal was to be on Broadway. It meant more to me than anything in the world, and I was willing to put in as much work as I had to to get there. I had an opportunity to work with professionals in the industry and grow as a creator. I was beyond myself with excitement. I threw myself into eight weeks of prep work before the week of live training. The big week was two weeks away when I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. I was to be hospitalized right away; we were told if I waited any longer, my heart could fail on me. That day will forever be etched into my memory. So many emotions flooded through me as I tried to process what, on some level, I had to have already known. I was sick, and I needed help. The thing about it, though, was I didn't know if I wanted it. I stayed awake that night, afraid my heart would give up on me if I slept. My parents took me to the hospital the next day. I was bombarded with meals that took all my inner strength to complete. I was stolen from my slumber at three in the morning to get my blood drawn. I was slapped in the face with the reality that I would not be attending the summer program I'd spent years saving up for. Robert Hartwell, the leader of that program, called my family while we were the hospital. "You focus on making yourself whole again," he told me. That phrase never left any of us. After a week, once my heart rate made it from 37 beats per minute to 45, I was sent to a residential facility. I was being asked to throw my fear out the window and comply with treatment. I was being asked to attend group therapy from dawn to dusk. I was being asked to give up the one thing that gave me such sense of control I didn't know how to function without it: starving myself. I'd grown up as an overweight kid, riddled with anxiety and the knowledge that my classmates saw me as something less than human. I'd developed my anorexia as a way to never feel like that again, to show them that I had it in me to be something more; so how could I give it up? Who was I without anorexia? As I pushed myself through the program, I found out. I was funny, I was a beautiful writer, and I was a strong source of motivation for my peers. I forced myself to eat foods out of my comfort zone, clinging onto this far-away notion that maybe my life would be better on the other side of my suffering. The most difficult thing I've ever endured is giving up the thing that disguised itself as my savior. I didn't have proof that I would benefit; I had to make myself believe it. I have been in eating disorder recovery for over two years. The biggest thing I've learned is that it isn't linear. I make the choice every single day to disobey this nagging voice that once consumed my every thought. As I fight against it, it grows quieter. By fighting my eating disorder, I've been able to reconnect with my greatest passion: writing. I've found peace within myself. I've become a better performer than that girl in 2020 could have ever imagined. I've found love. I've presented as myself, and everything that comes with that. I work together with my body. In fighting my eating disorder, I have discovered life.

I used to be a chronic over-sharer. I would tell everyone details about my own life, as well as the details of the lives of people I was close to. I didn't necessarily do this intentionally, but rather as a means of relating to and getting closer to people. I attended a very small school from freshman to junior year, where everybody seemed to know everyone else's business. I trusted a lot of people, and I valued my connections with them, so I told them too many details about things I went through. Before I knew it, there wasn't a single classmate of mine who didn't know my business. At that school, I ended up in a relationship, and he told me after we broke up that he'd felt very watched, like everyone knew everything about us and about him. I had been unintentionally making public things that he didn't want to be known. People at school began knowing me as notorious for not being able to keep a secret, for the things I'd told them about, for not being able to keep a thought to myself. This all came to a head in the summer of 2022, when I got into a heated argument with my parents and took it to social media. I was out of the house for a couple of days, and I didn't think I'd be going back. Once I returned, I realized that everybody in my life knew exactly what had happened. They all had opinions about different ways that I should have handled it. I had known for a long time that I needed to work on my oversharing problem, but it was only when things blew up to this proportion that I truly committed to working on it. I went to a mental health treatment center to work on a number of things, including my impulsivity, my anxiety, my depression, and a lot of harmful coping behaviors that included this oversharing problem. I made the decision with my treatment team to move schools after the program was over. I learned new skills and ways to deal with my problems without processing them with others out loud. I worked on the harmful behaviors that were holding me back from closeness in relationships and living my life to the best potential I could. By the time I left the program, I was a different person. I was using coping skills and finding different outlets to deal with stressors. I had many conversations with the same ex-boyfriend who felt so clouded by my oversharing before, and he could see the growth in me. I worked to become a private person, to share my experiences with others without them knowing everything about me. I've become an expert secret-keeper, and I know how to mind my business. This year has been full of growth, more growth than I've ever seen in myself before. I am growing and learning more and more every day.

I attended Dekalb School of the Arts from 2019 to 2022. In that time, I was surrounded by a predominantly queer and predominantly black community who taught me so much about diversity, ally-ship, and community. They challenged my views on the world, helped me learn to fight for myself and my peers, and helped me prepare to take on the world with open eyes and an open heart. During my time in high school, I was also in an interracial relationship. It taught me so much about his life perspective and how both our relationship and the life that he leads affected him every single day. I knew that I could never fully understand his life as a black person, and I made sure that I took every opportunity I could to learn from him and educate the people in my own life who were not privy to the knowledge or education themselves of the hardships that came with the life of a person of color in America. I had long discussions with my father to relay the information I learned from my peers and black educators, purchased books to better understand my own white privilege, ensured I always listened to the perspective of my friends and peers of color, and tried my best to use my platform and privilege to lift others' voices up. During high school, I discovered that I was queer and spent my upperclassmen years navigating different facets of my identity. From a young age, I have advocated for the queer people in my life and felt a strong connection with them. My cousins have identified as queer for years, and I have always found myself surrounded by friends who are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. There are people in my life such as relatives and guardians who have spoken poorly or ignorantly about queer people, usually fueled by religious beliefs, political affiliations, or pure lack of knowledge. Since I first learned what it meant to be queer, I used my voice, research, and knowledge to attempt to educate these people in my life. I stood with my queer friends and family before I discovered my own identity, using both my voice and my social media platform to educate and stick up for the LGBT community. When I discovered I was queer myself, I didn't stop advocating. I attended parades, walk-outs, and rallies. I partook in discussions with people who viewed differently than I did. When I discovered that I was transgender, I immersed myself in trans-friendly spaces and attended the Atlanta Pride Parade. When hateful protestors made their way into the park, I followed them around to spread love to everyone they tried to harass. My eighth grade year, my friends and I organized a school walk-out to protest gun violence and easy access to guns, spreading awareness about school shootings after our own school was put under threat. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to make a difference in the world.

In June of 2020, I was preparing to train for a summer program that might have changed my life. My biggest goal was to be on Broadway. It meant more to me than anything in the world, and I was willing to put in as much work as I had to to get there. I had an opportunity to work with professionals in the industry and grow as a creator. I was beyond myself with excitement. I threw myself into eight weeks of prep work before the week of live training. The big week was two weeks away when I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. I was to be hospitalized right away; we were told if I waited any longer, my heart could fail on me. That day will forever be etched into my memory. So many emotions flooded through me as I tried to process what, on some level, I had to have already known. I was sick, and I needed help. The thing about it, though, was I didn't know if I wanted it. I stayed awake that night, afraid my heart would give up on me if I slept. My parents took me to the hospital the next day. I was bombarded with meals that took all my inner strength to complete. I was stolen from my slumber at three in the morning to get my blood drawn. I was slapped in the face with the reality that I would not be attending the summer program I'd spent years saving up for. Robert Hartwell, the leader of that program, called my family while we were the hospital. "You focus on making yourself whole again," he told me. That phrase never left any of us. After a week, I was sent to a residential facility. I was being asked to throw my fear out the window and comply with treatment. I was being asked to give up the one thing that gave me such sense of control I didn't know how to function without it: starving myself. I'd grown up as an overweight kid, riddled with anxiety and the knowledge that my classmates saw me as something less than human. I'd developed anorexia as a way to never feel like that again, to show them that I had it in me to be something more; so how could I give it up? Who was I without anorexia? As I pushed myself through the program, I found out. I was funny, I was a beautiful writer, and I was a strong source of motivation for my peers. I forced myself to eat foods out of my comfort zone, clinging onto this far-away notion that my life could be better on the other side of my suffering. The most difficult thing I've ever endured is giving up the thing that disguised itself as my savior. I didn't have proof that I would benefit; I had to make myself believe it. I have been in eating disorder recovery for over two years. The biggest thing I've learned is that it isn't linear. I make the choice every single day to disobey this nagging voice that once consumed my every thought. By fighting my eating disorder, I've been able to reconnect with my greatest passion: writing. I am now going into college to pursue that. I've found peace within myself. I've become a better performer than that girl in 2020 could have ever imagined. I've found love. I've presented as myself, and everything that comes with that. I work together with my body. In fighting my eating disorder, I have discovered life.

I think the most impactful way to combat climate change is to do everything that you can in your own life to live a more environmentally-friendly life, and to encourage the people in your life to do the same through positive encouragement. What we've learned from the media is that people don't tend to listen to scare tactics; they'll ignore it and try to pretend like it doesn't exist. What we've also learned is that we have to come together; we can't do it alone. I believe that doing as much as we can in our daily lives, imperfectly, is better than trying to do everything perfectly and becoming burnt out. Sometimes it's as simple as picking up trash on the street. Sometimes it's biking or walking somewhere that it isn't necessary to drive to. I think we as a society should invest in hybrid cars. We should work to make them more financially accessible. The government doesn't want us to get rid of gasoline and oil because they're so much money in the industry. The way we have to approach it isn't by trying to pass laws to ban it everywhere; because they won't listen. We have to stop buying it. We have to boycott it and move toward safer alternatives whenever we can, and encourage others in our lives to do the same. It's hard not to feel hopeless, to throw our hands up in the air and just give up because we feel we can't get through to half the population about our crisis. That's what they want us to do, though. If we give up, we have even less of a chance than we do if we are doing everything we can in our own lives to combat this terrifying phenomenon. I've found in my life that I get the most done when I validate others' feelings on the topic and encourage them to make smaller changes rather than big ones. If we all change the small things we do in our lives, we can still drastically decrease our carbon footprint, and the smaller goals will lead to bigger ones. I truly think it starts with baby steps, and we have to act fast to implement these, because we are running out of time. Climate activists are very important, and we need to keep spreading the word. I believe, too, that we should reward behavior that helps make our environment healthier and happier.

In June of 2020, I was preparing to train for a summer program that might have changed my life. My biggest goal was to be on Broadway. It meant more to me than anything in the world, and I was willing to put in as much work as I had to to get there. I had an opportunity to work with professionals in the industry and grow as a creator. I was beyond myself with excitement. I threw myself into eight weeks of prep work before the week of live training. The big week was two weeks away when I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. I was to be hospitalized right away; we were told if I waited any longer, my heart could fail on me. That day will forever be etched into my memory. So many emotions flooded through me as I tried to process what, on some level, I had to have already known. I was sick, and I needed help. The thing about it, though, was I didn't know if I wanted it. I stayed awake that night, afraid my heart would give up on me if I slept. My parents took me to the hospital the next day. I was bombarded with meals that took all my inner strength to complete. I was stolen from my slumber at three in the morning to get my blood drawn. I was slapped in the face with the reality that I would not be attending the summer program I'd spent years saving up for. Robert Hartwell, the leader of that program, called my family while we were the hospital. "You focus on making yourself whole again," he told me. That phrase never left any of us. After a week, I was sent to a residential facility. I was being asked to throw my fear out the window and comply with treatment. I was being asked to give up the one thing that gave me such sense of control I didn't know how to function without it: starving myself. I'd grown up as an overweight kid, riddled with anxiety and the knowledge that my classmates saw me as something less than human. I'd developed anorexia as a way to never feel like that again, to show them that I had it in me to be something more; so how could I give it up? Who was I without anorexia? As I pushed myself through the program, I found out. I was funny, I was a beautiful writer, and I was a strong source of motivation for my peers. I forced myself to eat foods out of my comfort zone, clinging onto this far-away notion that my life could be better on the other side of my suffering. The most difficult thing I've ever endured is giving up the thing that disguised itself as my savior. I had to make myself believe I'd be okay. I have been in eating disorder recovery for over two years. The biggest thing I've learned is that it isn't linear. I make the choice every single day to disobey this nagging voice that once consumed my every thought. By fighting my eating disorder, I've been able to reconnect with my greatest passion: writing. I am now going into college to pursue that. I intend to write screenplays that depict my struggles and how to overcome them in a new way that doesn't harm or trigger those in their own recovery journey. I want to invoke emotion and meaning into people, and share my story to show that it is possible to discover life through recovery.

"Clean" by Taylor Swift has a very important message to me. It is the last song off of her fourth studio album, 1989, and it depicts what life is like with addiction and what it means to let go of it. She discusses how being in the depths of your darkest moments can help you rise above your struggles. The song hits home because it talks about how getting clean or overcoming your addiction isn't a linear, simple process. She sings about how challenging yourself and your mental illness can make you feel like you're worse off, but it gives you the opportunity to live a real life. "When I was drowning, that's when I could finally breathe," to me, means that she's drowning in the rain that cleans her from her mental illness. She feels like it's bottomless, like she can't escape it, but she realizes slowly that this is the only way she'll be able to truly breathe again. In the bridge of the song, she sings, "Ten months sober, I must admit, just because you're clean don't mean you don't miss it." Even when you've risen above the disaster that tore you from happiness, you still find yourself craving the old behaviors that destroyed you. You never truly forget the moments of control you felt within that addiction or disease. Clean speaks about what it means to feel "finally clean" from hardship, addiction, mental illness, or disease, and how freeing but tragic the process is.

In June of 2020, I was preparing to train for a summer program that might have changed my life. My biggest goal was to be on Broadway. It meant more to me than anything in the world, and I was willing to put in as much work as I had to to get there. I had an opportunity to work with professionals in the industry and grow as a creator. I was beyond myself with excitement. I threw myself into eight weeks of prep work before the week of live training. The big week was two weeks away when I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. I was to be hospitalized right away; we were told if I waited any longer, my heart could fail on me. That day will forever be etched into my memory. So many emotions flooded through me as I tried to process what, on some level, I had to have already known. I was sick, and I needed help. The thing about it, though, was I didn't know if I wanted it. I stayed awake that night, afraid my heart would give up on me if I slept. My parents took me to the hospital the next day. I was bombarded with meals that took all my inner strength to complete. I was stolen from my slumber at three in the morning to get my blood drawn. I was slapped in the face with the reality that I would not be attending the summer program I'd spent years saving up for. Robert Hartwell, the leader of that program, called my family while we were the hospital. "You focus on making yourself whole again," he told me. That phrase never left any of us. After a week, I was sent to a residential facility. I was being asked to throw my fear out the window and comply with treatment. I was being asked to give up the one thing that gave me such sense of control I didn't know how to function without it: starving myself. I'd grown up as an overweight kid, riddled with anxiety and the knowledge that my classmates saw me as something less than human. I'd developed anorexia as a way to never feel like that again, to show them that I had it in me to be something more; so how could I give it up? Who was I without anorexia? As I pushed myself through the program, I found out. I was funny, I was a beautiful writer, and I was a strong source of motivation for my peers. I forced myself to eat foods out of my comfort zone, clinging onto this far-away notion that my life could be better on the other side of my suffering. The most difficult thing I've ever endured is giving up the thing that disguised itself as my savior. I didn't have proof that I would benefit; I had to make myself believe it. I have been in eating disorder recovery for over two years. The biggest thing I've learned is that it isn't linear. I make the choice every single day to disobey this nagging voice that once consumed my every thought. By fighting my eating disorder, I've been able to reconnect with my greatest passion: writing. I am now going into college to pursue that. I've found peace within myself. I've become a better performer than that girl in 2020 could have ever imagined. I've found love. I've presented as myself, and everything that comes with that. I work together with my body. In fighting my eating disorder, I have discovered life.

Writing has been my refuge since the age of six years old. For as long as I've been able to form sentences, I've been writing. As soon as I learned to read, I knew I could tell stories like the ones I read. Writing provides me a home that I can return to when I'm feeling lost or alone. I can create worlds to escape into, filling them with complex characters that represent the different aspects of life that I'm facing at any given moment. Writing allows me to express myself in a way that no other outlet can. At six, I would sit at my family's shared computer and type short stories until my fingers ached. In fourth grade, I began to draft plots for novels I wanted to write one day. In fifth grade, I expressed passion through poetry and used that same poetry five years later to connect with my first love. In tenth grade, I wrote a poem about eating disorder recovery. Through that poem, I was able to express things I couldn't quite explain before, and it is still one of my proudest accomplishments today. In eleventh grade, I wrote a play with my peers for our school's Black History Tour show. We won, and the school put on our play. Seeing that play come to life was the most joy I've ever felt for a piece of work I've created. Writing is important to me because I can tell stories that mean something to people. I'm able to express myself through description, imagery, words on a page that come to life before me. Writing provides me an outlet for the ins and outs of life. When I was going through my first heartbreak, I took out my computer and wrote a screenplay. That episode became the best script I'd ever written because it came straight from my heart. Through writing it, I processed my grief, had somewhere to put it, and was able to let go of the situation. Writing healed me. As I move into college and toward a career, it is writing that helps me achieve my goals. It is the writing on this very page that will provide me the finances I need to flourish in school. It is the stories I weave that will allow me to invoke the emotion I crave to make my audiences feel. Writing has become my lifeline. I don't know who I'd be without it.

In June of 2020, I was preparing to train for a summer program that might have changed my life. My biggest goal was to be on Broadway. It meant more to me than anything in the world, and I was willing to put in as much work as I had to to get there. I had an opportunity to work with professionals in the industry and grow as a creator. I was beyond myself with excitement. I threw myself into eight weeks of prep work before the week of live training. The big week was two weeks away when I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. I was to be hospitalized right away; we were told if I waited any longer, my heart could fail on me. That day will forever be etched into my memory. So many emotions flooded through me as I tried to process what, on some level, I had to have already known. I was sick, and I needed help. The thing about it, though, was I didn't know if I wanted it. I stayed awake that night, afraid my heart would give up on me if I slept. My parents took me to the hospital the next day. I was bombarded with meals that took all my inner strength to complete. I was stolen from my slumber at three in the morning to get my blood drawn. I was slapped in the face with the reality that I would not be attending the summer program I'd spent years saving up for. Robert Hartwell, the leader of that program, called my family while we were the hospital. "You focus on making yourself whole again," he told me. That phrase never left any of us. After a week, I was sent to a residential facility. I was being asked to throw my fear out the window and comply with treatment. I was being asked to give up the one thing that gave me such sense of control I didn't know how to function without it: starving myself. I'd grown up as an overweight kid, riddled with anxiety and the knowledge that my classmates saw me as something less than human. I'd developed anorexia as a way to never feel like that again, to show them that I had it in me to be something more; so how could I give it up? Who was I without anorexia? As I pushed myself through the program, I found out. I was funny, I was a beautiful writer, and I was a strong source of motivation for my peers. I forced myself to eat foods out of my comfort zone, clinging onto this far-away notion that my life could be better on the other side of my suffering. The most difficult thing I've ever endured is giving up the thing that disguised itself as my savior. I didn't have proof that I would benefit; I had to make myself believe it. I have been in eating disorder recovery for over two years. The biggest thing I've learned is that it isn't linear. I make the choice every single day to disobey this nagging voice that once consumed my every thought. By fighting my eating disorder, I've been able to reconnect with my greatest passion: writing. I am now going into college to pursue that. I've found peace within myself. I've become a better performer than that girl in 2020 could have ever imagined. I've found love. I've presented as myself, and everything that comes with that. I work together with my body. In fighting my eating disorder, I have discovered life.

In June of 2020, I was preparing to train for a summer program that might have changed my life. My biggest goal was to be on Broadway. It meant more to me than anything in the world, and I was willing to put in as much work as I had to to get there. I had an opportunity to work with professionals in the industry and grow as a creator. I was beyond myself with excitement. I threw myself into eight weeks of prep work before the week of live training. The big week was two weeks away when I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. I was to be hospitalized right away; we were told if I waited any longer, my heart could fail on me. That day will forever be etched into my memory. So many emotions flooded through me as I tried to process what, on some level, I had to have already known. I was sick, and I needed help. The thing about it, though, was I didn't know if I wanted it. I stayed awake that night, afraid my heart would give up on me if I slept. My parents took me to the hospital the next day. I was bombarded with meals that took all my inner strength to complete. I was stolen from my slumber at three in the morning to get my blood drawn. I was slapped in the face with the reality that I would not be attending the summer program I'd spent years saving up for. Robert Hartwell, the leader of that program, called my family while we were the hospital. "You focus on making yourself whole again," he told me. That phrase never left any of us. After a week, once my heart rate made it from 37 beats per minute to 45, I was sent to a residential facility. I was being asked to throw my fear out the window and comply with treatment. I was being asked to attend group therapy from dawn to dusk. I was being asked to give up the one thing that gave me such sense of control I didn't know how to function without it: starving myself. I'd grown up as an overweight kid, riddled with anxiety and the knowledge that my classmates saw me as something less than human. I'd developed my anorexia as a way to never feel like that again, to show them that I had it in me to be something more; so how could I give it up? Who was I without anorexia? I have been in eating disorder recovery for over two years. The biggest thing I've learned is that it isn't linear. I make the choice every single day to disobey this nagging voice that once consumed my every thought. As I fight against it, it grows quieter. By fighting my eating disorder, I've been able to reconnect with my greatest passion: writing. I've found peace within myself. I've become a better performer than that girl in 2020 could have ever imagined. I've found love. I've presented as myself, and everything that comes with that. I work together with my body. In fighting my eating disorder, I have discovered life.

Letting yourself go— a loss of authority over one’s own free will; a lack of accountability & a careless toss of willpower out the window of your soul. This is the definition the world puts on our shoulders that is brought upon us on a day we don’t remember. What sense is questioning the very ideology that has never done you wrong? It’s never led you astray… unless you think too deeply, and set your best intentions to the tune of your intuition and the beat of your heart. Should you let go of this rigid regulation that has lingered in the air and tangled in your hair, what will come of you? You long for authentic encounters; to feel grounded in yourself, to be present in your skin, and feel the warmth of your cheeks as you laugh until you ache. What if, perhaps, the world has brought upon you a lie as old as life and as altering as the flaw you’d sell yourself away to muster; sell your boundaries and your rest, sell your joy and even pain, sit in numbness and regret because to be put together, perfect and good, accepted and admired, less lonely and loved, beautiful and worthy and every subjective adjective that we’re told has one meaning, is worth the inner turmoil… what if it is not? As you subject yourself to the soothing melody of your old favorite song and you tune out your burdens one by one, imagine what it is to let yourself go— of the taunting words that still cloud your vision. Of the rules that keep you locked in destructive routine. Of the fear that truly living without hesitation or reservation feels like anything other than freedom. Take a hammer to your walls and chase after the desires that make your heart skip a beat and your eyes gleam with hope. As we look back on our days, 98 and wrinkled with life, we will smile fondly back at how we embraced ourselves wholly. There will be no regret, no wish to turn back time, so that we could tell our younger selves how life passes by too quickly to hold back, for even a moment, from letting yourself go.

I attended Dekalb School of the Arts from 2019 to 2022. In that time, I was surrounded by a predominantly queer and predominantly black community who taught me so much about diversity, ally-ship, and community. They challenged my views on the world, helped me learn to fight for myself and my peers, and helped me prepare to take on the world with open eyes and an open heart. During my time in high school, I was also in an interracial relationship. It taught me so much about his life perspective and how both our relationship and the life that he leads affected him every single day. I knew that I could never fully understand his life as a black person, and I made sure that I took every opportunity I could to learn from him and educate the people in my own life who were not privy to the knowledge or education themselves of the hardships that came with the life of a person of color in America. I had long discussions with my father to relay the information I learned from my peers and black educators, purchased books to better understand my own white privilege, ensured I always listened to the perspective of my friends and peers of color, and tried my best to use my platform and privilege to lift others' voices up. During high school, I discovered that I was queer and spent my upperclassmen years navigating different facets of my identity. From a young age, I have advocated for the queer people in my life and felt a strong connection with them. My cousins have identified as queer for years, and I have always found myself surrounded by friends who are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. There are people in my life such as relatives and guardians who have spoken poorly or ignorantly about queer people, usually fueled by religious beliefs, political affiliations, or pure lack of knowledge. Since I first learned what it meant to be queer, I used my voice, research, and knowledge to attempt to educate these people in my life. I stood with my queer friends and family before I discovered my own identity, using both my voice and my social media platform to educate and stick up for the LGBT community. When I discovered I was queer myself, I didn't stop advocating. I attended parades, walk-outs, and rallies. I partook in discussions with people who viewed differently than I did. When I discovered that I was transgender, I immersed myself in trans-friendly spaces and attended the Atlanta Pride Parade. When hateful protestors made their way into the park, I followed them around to spread love to everyone they tried to harass. My eighth grade year, my friends and I organized a school walk-out to protest gun violence and easy access to guns, spreading awareness about school shootings after our own school was put under threat. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to make a difference in the world.

Writing has been my refuge since the age of six years old. For as long as I've been able to form sentences, I've been writing. As soon as I learned to read, I knew I could tell stories like the ones I read. Writing provides me a home that I can return to when I'm feeling lost or alone. I can create worlds to escape into, filling them with complex characters that represent the different aspects of life that I'm facing at any given moment. Writing allows me to express myself in a way that no other outlet can. At six, I would sit at my family's shared computer and type short stories until my fingers ached. In fourth grade, I began to draft plots for novels I wanted to write one day. In fifth grade, I expressed passion through poetry and used that same poetry five years later to connect with my first love. In tenth grade, I wrote a poem about eating disorder recovery. Through that poem, I was able to express things I couldn't quite explain before, and it is still one of my proudest accomplishments today. In eleventh grade, I wrote a play with my peers for our school's Black History Tour show. We won, and the school put on our play. Seeing that play come to life was the most joy I've ever felt for a piece of work I've created. Writing is important to me because I can tell stories that mean something to people. I'm able to express myself through description, imagery, words on a page that come to life before me. Writing provides me an outlet for the ins and outs of life. When I was going through my first heartbreak, I took out my computer and wrote a screenplay. That episode became the best script I'd ever written because it came straight from my heart. Through writing it, I processed my grief, had somewhere to put it, and was able to let go of the situation. Writing healed me. As I move into college and toward a career, it is writing that helps me achieve my goals. It is the writing on this very page that will provide me the finances I need to flourish in school. It is the stories I weave that will allow me to invoke the emotion I crave to make my audiences feel. Writing has become my lifeline. I don't know who I'd be without it.

In the throws of my anorexia, I became addicted to numbers, to bones, to relentless competition. My mind, which housed the biggest dreams and ideas, was so soon decorated with cobwebs and burnout. How could I think of anything else if I wasn't feeding my mind? Addiction is the disease that keeps on taking. It is the only disease that actively convinces you you're fine. If I had a failing kidney, my kidney would not respond to treatment with, "I can handle this myself." And yet my mind did that exact thing. I was fourteen years old, drenched in sweat from the elliptical I spent too many hours on and in the words of my former classmates who ridiculed my body when they thought I wasn't listening. Their words clung to me until I was wrapped in them, until they provided my body with more fuel than the food I allowed myself to consume. Then my doctor gave me an EKG. My heart rate was 37 beats per minute. In a year and a half, I had managed to emaciate myself to the brink of death. My mother was glued to the phone, making countless calls to doctors and treatment centers. I reluctantly answered questions at evaluations, realizing all at once how broken I'd become. I was rushed to the hospital with the knowledge that if I'd waited another day, my heart would have failed me. I was fed meals that gave me panic attacks until a residential treatment center was ready to admit me. This was where the work began. I have gone my whole life making straight A's, maintaining a 4.0 GPA, going above and beyond in AP classes and extra-curriculars, and working harder than anybody else at my job. The task of overcoming mental illness has exceeded any hard work I have ever achieved. I have worked with an outpatient therapist for over two years to ensure I stay on track. I hold myself accountable every single day and fight against the nagging voice in my head until it becomes more of a whisper. I have to separate my thoughts until I know which belong to me and which belong to my addiction. I do all of this because I hold onto the inkling that my life is worth something. I grasp onto the moments of happiness I experience when I let myself go. I went on the news to share my story and declined to share my weight because I knew that other girls would look at the story and use it as motivation to fuel their own demons. I tell stories and give speeches to friends and annotate recovery books because I know what it is to recover; I know what it is to be free of an eating disorder. I know that overcoming it means to throw every fear out the window, that no professional can make you overcome it unless you decide to fight for yourself. I know that hearing these things from someone who's been in the same spot as you can be so much more comforting than to hear it from someone who never has. I dedicate my life to helping others in the same way that I've been helped. I know I'm one of the lucky ones, and I want to go on to write stories that touch the hearts of the same people who are covered in words that don't define them.

My grandfather wore benevolence on his sleeve alongside his heart even after he couldn't remember my name. We call him Zayde. I often think of his mind as a fire, and although the logs that burn it remain, it dwindles with each passing day. When one thinks of the loss of a family member, the common train of thought leads immediately to death. My Zayde's heart continues to thump triumphantly on, but his dementia has taken him from my family and me. The fire that once was notorious for its flames of bright orange now weakly sparks and trembles, the quick-witted one-liners that used to roll off his tongue now jumbled attempts at English as my mother and aunt calmly whisper, "Use your words, Dad." If my grandfather's mind is a fire, then my family and I must be the campers. My Zayde was raised by neglectful parents who'd turn their cheek when he needed them most. Somehow, though, he persevered. He served in the army and married my grandmother. They had two kids together before a messy divorce. Again, he persevered. He found the love of his life, who had two children of her own, and raised a blended family that, to this day, meets three times a year. My nine cousins and I have him to thank for the bond we so gratefully share. As we sit around a campfire that fails to warm us the way his mind used to, we recall the way he used to make us laugh, his number one rule, "Never waste ice cream," and the trips to Nifty Fifty's he took us on every summer. We grasp at straws and savor what's left of him, but he lives a thirteen-hour drive away, two hours by plane, and my father's demanding business doesn't allow for much travel. What nobody tells you about dementia is the slow and gradual loss cuts even deeper than a quick, painless one. We lose my Zayde every day, and we never know how much of him we'll still have when the next opportunity to visit him arises. We feel his loss at every Thanksgiving he spends in the nursing home, every question he asks that he once knew the answers to, and every visit to the home we visit to take care of him, the same place where he used to take care of my great-grandmother under the same condition. What the loss of my Zayde teaches me is to cherish every moment I have with the people I love the most. I am learning to say "I love you" as much as I can while my recipients can still grasp what it means. More than ever, I've learned to use my writing as an outlet and to tell stories that matter. The fire of his mind may be dwindling, but it burns feverishly and forever on these pages. When I first learned that his dementia worsened, I wrote a poem about my Zayde and entered it into a competition. It won. His memory may have turned into a sea of lost and vacant expression, but the memories he lives inside of will always be etched into the stories I tell. I write this essay today in the hopes of affording to pursue a BFA in film and television, with a concentration in screenwriting. These are the kinds of stories I live to tell. My Zayde has taught me that I can persevere, just like he did. His life was not wasted any more than a fire that eventually burns its last piece of wood and dies out. He provided his campers with more warmth than we ever could've hoped for, and while he dwindles, I remember him through the words on the pages of the stories I tell. In the life of my Zayde I learned never to waste ice cream. In the loss of my Zayde I learned never to waste a memory. I'll carry these lessons with me forever.