Mental health is like an infinite walk. The path is so long and sometimes you end up walking on the street because there's no sidewalk. You walk a little of a lot longer and before you know it the seasons change and so do you with it. You're tired, overworked, restless, and you never seem to be wearing the right pair of walking shoes. You never quite get to the point of satisfactory and you're always anticipating the next season. "I just have to make it to tomorrow", you tell yourself as if time doesn't repeat itself because at this point, the days have blurred. You have become a mindless being aimlessly walking through life and it shows in your posture and the way no one approaches you. I had become a mindless being. After covid, the world had so greatly shifted, yet stayed the same. It was like everything just paused, but hadn't frozen. Time kept running just as it always has, but not for me. I spent so long rotting away in my trundle bed, fantasizing about what the world would be like if I had finished middle school and made all the friends I'd planned to, and soon returning the reality before me where my friendships existed in tv-shows with characters who were no more sentient than the clothes on my back. I wanted to believe that my loneliness was a test from a higher being, hinting to me that nothing will come without my retrieving it. Though, I felt like because I had no friends to begin with, this test wouldn't spontaneously come about during a world-wide pandemic. This was none other than my own doing. My life was a product of myself. I created the world I lived in. However, it was this very thought that altered my perspective. I can create perception. I can formulate the world around me to suit my needs. So I stopped waiting for something or someone to pull me out of my bed. I started getting out on my own. Going on color walks, which allowed me to replace my black and white thoughts with the pink peonies in my neighbors yard. I took school more seriously and found a love for written expression. It's been five years since then, and I've made friends. Because I stopped waiting for life to happen, I realized it was happening all along. I recently started school at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and it made me realize that there may have been a higher power that knew this was in store for me all along, but it wasn't what told me I needed to seize life; that was me. I knew all along what I needed to do, it was just a matter of gathering the courage to try. Mental health is like an infinite walk. I have so much more track to cover, but now, I have on the right pair of shoes.

Before I'd mastered the art of bunny ears and loops, I recall my father, Michael, tying a satin scarf around my head before bed, telling me about the magic of Bruce Lee’s famous “one-inch-punch”. In this, a straightened, unclenched fist measures an inch away from an opponent and within a snap, the fist balls up and closes the distance with amazing force, sending the opponent flying. Michael tells me that this technique requires the strength of the entire body as opposed to exclusively the upper body. That night, with the moon illuminating my bedroom, I'd snuck out of bed and attempted the move myself. That concept of utilizing full body strength in a movement so quick and swift wasn't something I ever conquered unfortunately. Well, at least not in that way. See, as I grew older, I never stopped thinking about the punch. I remember during calculus tests I would day dream about robbers breaking in at night and me taking them all down with the move all before anyone woke up like the Batman. I knew that I couldn't do it physically, so I figured I could apply it elsewhere. I would come to learn that nothing is awarded through half-efforts, thus I needed to put my all into everything I do for results. At three-years-old, my parents divorced, leaving me with no memory of them together and no remnants of a two-parent home. On days we spent with my father, he would often go without eating so he could feed us after the divorce had driven him to bankruptcy and in a one bedroom apartment with goodwill furniture. Of course, Michael hid the greater parts of his suffering from us as any good parent would, but it impossible to not notice how small he'd gotten once we began visiting more frequently. I had been too young to fully grasp why birthday's were spent watching DVD'S and eating Kroger-brand sugar cookies back then, but Michael had always been sacrificial and protective for the benefit of his family. At times where both food and money were scarce and we’d been living in a rural area, my father never hesitated to skip meals and kept Bob, a practice dummy who was covered in cuts and black scrapes, around to maintain his skills. Every scar and wrinkle of my father’s was another reminder of what true determination looks like. My father had never gone to college, leaving him with nothing to fall back on after the divorce and us in the position of struggle. Through my schooling at the University of Tennessee, I am pursuing Animal Nutrition and plan to become a dietitian post-graduation. I want to promote a healthy diet and lifestyle, opposite of which I grew up around. I refuse to allow my family to be continuing victims of financial hardship and will put my all into everything I do, much like the one inch punch, to ensure that. The struggle ends with me.

“Smile for the camera!” An imperative phrase that will only leave one’s lips if a photo’s subject cannot replicate the joy they are expected to exude. I am told to smile, but this photo will constrain me in the same place, the same time, and the same emotions. I am not allowed to speak, think, or move, so I refuse to smile. I have refused to submit to the flash of the camera that solidified my bondage to its shiny chains. I have refused to allow a photo that will not capture my beauty, paint me as submissive to its ulterior motives. To encourage my insecurities, magnify my flaws, but at its most malicious, to trap me. Not only in a single photo, but in my thoughts. Reminding me that I'm no longer as young as I was. Telling me l'm no longer allowed to wear sparkly tutus or try on my mother's once seemingly humongous Jimmy Choo heels that I've now outgrown. The camera will only capture me, yet not the person behind it. I cannot see them in my eyes, forcing me to acknowledge that some memories are only temporary. I won't remember who the person behind the camera was the same as I will not remember who l was that day. What I do recall, is the inability to mimic the smile of the pretty and polite little girls on my TV. They took photos and videos with their dolls and fake kitchen sets smiling as if tears were on the verge of draining their bodies of all of its water, conveying genuine joy through the static of 6-year-old me's TV screen. I have made it all the way to my senior year of high school without ever smiling at a camera from my heart, knowing that it would never beat the same as it did when the finger clicked that button. As my life had begun picking up at such a rapid speed providing me with new experiences in love, spirituality, and exploring passions, I was forced into a space of understanding that I had been ignorant to before: taking my own pictures. I'd quickly learned that with my finger on the camera's trigger, I was now in control of how the shots of the flash highlighted my face and I could decide how I wanted future me to see me. I've decided that I want her to be proud and content with not only how l'm developing as an individual, but also with my accomplishments. I've taken photos with my first paid off car, my Waffle House uniform that signifies my first job, and of most noteworthiness photos of my face. I no longer refuse to smile. I no longer refuse to accept that the camera does not imprison you, but rather reminds you of your journey. Lastly, I now refuse to give a single photo the power to bewitch my mind into thinking that I am not allowed the human right of self-worth. I am older, but there is an even older me watching to see how I use the cards I've been dealt. So now, as the camera flashes, so does my smile.

I was three when my parents divorced, so I have no memories of them together. I never experienced the feeling of my family seemingly shredding, or the grief of losing my two-parent household. A big misconception about my childhood is that I was numb to the existing pain that my older siblings felt. That I didn’t grieve or hurt. Though, I did. I grieved the look on my father’s face while he starved himself just so he could afford to feed my brother and I in our one bedroom apartment. I grieve the absence of the memories my siblings have of my parents ever being together. I grieve my mother’s presence because, after the divorce she spent all of her time in her room, behind a locked door. Thus, my mother and I never built the cliché mother-daughter bond. I remember watching “Freaky Friday”, directed by Mark Waters, starring Jamie Lee Curtis as Tess and Lindsay Lohan as Anna. I particularly loved the dynamic between them, where they portrayed the stereotypical problem child and mother doing her best. The movie showcased the importance in valuing your loved ones and taking the time to understand the other. However, I, at the time, took nothing from the film but envy. I envied Tess and Anna’s relationship as it stood. Toxic, argumentative, in constant conflict, and the prominent refusal to resolve differences. I envied it all because I’d never experienced any of it. They spoke to each other every day despite their disagreements, yet I only recall the quiet car rides to and from school before my mother disappeared to her room. They bickered back and forth about meaningless things, yet my mother and I never interacted enough to bicker or conflict. Despite my mother’s lack of presence in my childhood, she fought hard in court to be my brother and I’s primary guardian and parent, so I wasn’t able to spend but eight days with my dad every month. However, as I grew older, my dad and I’s relationship has grown much stronger and he is essentially my best friend. I remember despite his inability to spend a lot of time with us due to the court’s ruling, he would carve out what time he could by picking us up from school and taking us to Wendy’s to eat, talk, and establish bonds with us before dropping us off at my mother’s. My first memories are of my dad bathing me while I played with a toy Dora the Explorer that he bought from the Family Dollar a couple blocks down the street. Like the nerd he is, he immersed my brother and I into his movie interests being the Marvel, DC, and Star Wars universes. Thus, we too became movie nerds, and it didn’t help that we all wore glasses. Nonetheless, the little time I spent with my father made up a plethora of core memories I reminisce about to this day. Both of my parents remarried less than 5 years after their divorce so, any chance I could’ve had of thinking they could reconcile would merely be a fantasy. I went through various trials and tribulations with my step parents, and more specifically my stepfather who treated my siblings and I with little to no respect. However, we took the hardships he burdened us with and used them as motivation to want more for ourselves. More being success and independence so as to prove to ourselves that whatever perception of us he tried to create would be denounced. I value the experiences my childhood gifted me and refute the weight on my shoulders that I very well could’ve let restrict me. Choosing to view my parent’s separation and separate lives as blessings in disguise granted me the ambition and confidence in myself that I now know I couldn’t get anywhere else.

I think it was somewhere in the timeframe of me working on my uncle’s farm in the summer heat, seeing the goats communicate in a language or maybe a mere sound that only they could decipher that I fell in love with animals. It could’ve been hearing of the coyotes breaking in at night to prey on those same goats and no longer hearing them communicate with each other, almost as a silent agreement in response to the trauma of the night before. I’m sure it was in 2012 when my dad brought home Michelangelo, a turtle that lived in a makeshift pond in our backyard. It is these experiences that made me the strong animal lover I am today. As a Vet-Med major, I want to offer more affordable animal care and ensure that wildlife is being cared for as delicately and efficiently as necessary. I would love to work in systemically and economically rural communities like where I’m from, East Nashville, where true and effective animal care can be alarmingly expensive and without coordination to the pockets of the people. I’ve seen firsthand, the tragedies of animal cruelty as a civilian walking the streets and as a volunteer at Nashville Humane Association. Socializing animals who were once abandoned, lost, and brought into the world without companionship. Though these animals have been through great disparities, this does not suggest their value. As a volunteer and physical extension of my morals, my goals are to ensure that these animals are able to find homes and companionship despite their distress. In a system where certain demographics are already disadvantaged, one which I've experienced, it's crucial to provide relief in the areas that we can. We are in world where betterment can only sprout from change, and I want to be that for my people, regardless of the scale. I believe young people of color should be allowed the privilege of seeing themselves succeed in other people. Whether that be scientists, senators, doctors, or even presidents, our youth needs to see that we can succeed in spite of the system. We can succeed in spite of our finances. We can succeed in spite of our struggles, and in fact, we can succeed because of our struggles. Our hardships, if anything, should be the spring and call to action. They should be the reason we wake up and want better for ourselves and for our people. I want to exemplify myself for the sake of the youth and older generations who never got to see themselves for who they really were.