I stared at the drawer filled with blinding colors and too many sparkles. Instead of feeling joy at the sight, I felt deep regret. Years of unused stickers stared back at me. My mind flooded with hundreds of missed opportunities to use these stickers – all because I waited for the perfect moment. Staring at a chunk of my childhood that never left this drawer made me realize there would never be that one perfect moment. From that day, I made it my mission to use my stickers, a seemingly easy task I had made impossible. As a stationary fanatic, I placed stickers on a high pedestal. I loved how stickers could represent my interests — from my obsession with Winx Club and old Barbie movies, my love-hate relationship with Gilmore Girls, and even my love for my Pakistani culture. They reflected who I was and who I wanted to be. As I began to use my stickers beside my chemistry notes to make the periodic table less intimidating, in my planner to match my mood for the day, and in my scrapbook to decorate the pages, I realized my issue stemmed from something beyond stickers. In general, I tended to wait for the ideal moment. These moments only started to arise when I stopped waiting and began chasing. Although I was born in America and spent most of my life here, part of my childhood occurred in the bustling city of Gujranwala, Pakistan. Surrounded by an abundance of family who filled every seat in the house, I felt complete. I constantly looked forward to each afternoon filled with drinking steaming hot chai and morning drives to school through busy streets lined with a rainbow of street vendors. Compared to my life in America, I was at ease surrounded by people who looked just like me. Like the stickers I hoarded for the moment that never came, I took these everyday joys for granted. In a week, all of this was snatched away from me. Violence had broken out in my city and my parents fled with me and my siblings back to America, a world away from the rest of my family. The void left by the absence of my extended family followed me everywhere. In an attempt to reunite my family, I dove into learning all I could about America’s immigration system only to discover how deeply flawed it was. This realization almost made me shove my dream of reuniting with my family into the drawer with my forgotten stickers. Determined not to wait for the perfect moment, I continued studying immigration policies and began advocating for better ones. I worked with an immigration attorney at a legal clinic to provide free services to immigrants and refugees as they filled out N-400s, I-130s, and other forms that once sounded foreign to me. I feel inspired to become an immigration attorney and create my own nonprofit that works to help immigrants successfully integrate into America while never forgetting their own culture. There are not many South Asian immigration attorneys in my home state of North Carolina despite the high population of South Asian immigrants. I want to represent my community and beyond while giving immigrants the space to embrace their cultures. As I learned to use my stickers spontaneously, I realized my ambitions to fight for my community did not need to wait for the perfect moment. It had to start now, with each small step and every bit of knowledge I gained. I no longer wait for the perfect moment but create it instead.

I stared at the drawer filled with blinding colors and too many sparkles. Instead of feeling joy at the sight, I felt deep regret. Years of unused stickers stared back at me. My mind flooded with hundreds of missed opportunities to use these stickers – all because I waited for the perfect moment. Staring at a chunk of my childhood that never left this drawer made me realize there would never be that one perfect moment. From that day, I made it my mission to use my stickers, a seemingly easy task I had made impossible. As a stationary fanatic, I placed stickers on a high pedestal. I loved how stickers could represent my interests — from my obsession with Winx Club and old Barbie movies, my love-hate relationship with Gilmore Girls, and even my love for my Pakistani culture. They reflected who I was and who I wanted to be. As I began to use my stickers beside my chemistry notes to make the periodic table less intimidating, in my planner to match my mood for the day, and in my scrapbook to decorate the pages, I realized my issue stemmed from something beyond stickers. In general, I tended to wait for the ideal moment. These moments only started to arise when I stopped waiting and began chasing. Although I was born in America and spent most of my life here, part of my childhood occurred in the bustling city of Gujranwala, Pakistan. Surrounded by an abundance of family who filled every seat in the house, I felt complete. I constantly looked forward to each afternoon filled with drinking steaming hot chai and morning drives to school through busy streets lined with a rainbow of street vendors. Compared to my life in America, I was at ease surrounded by people who looked just like me. Like the stickers I hoarded for the moment that never came, I took these everyday joys for granted. In a week, all of this was snatched away from me. Violence had broken out in my city and my parents fled with me and my siblings back to America, a world away from the rest of my family. The void left by the absence of my extended family followed me everywhere. In an attempt to reunite my family, I dove into learning all I could about America’s immigration system only to discover how deeply flawed it was. This realization almost made me shove my dream of reuniting with my family into the drawer with my forgotten stickers. Determined not to wait for the perfect moment, I continued studying immigration policies and began advocating for better ones. I conducted qualitative research with Wake Forest University and spoke with refugees at the North Carolina African Services Coalition to understand how the legal struggles they faced affected every aspect of their lives. I worked with an immigration attorney at a legal clinic to provide free services to immigrants and refugees as they filled out N-400s, I-130s, and other forms that once sounded foreign to me. Using these stories, research, and my personal experiences, I presented my research to over 100 individuals at the Benson University Center at Wake Forest University. As I decorated my informational poster with stickers, these simple decals seemed to symbolize the many lives affected by the current system. Seeing the shocked expressions on each face as I presented my work reminded me that although this has been my life, this is the first time many others are learning of this. Each encounter further fueled my passion to fight for my family and others. As I continue to intern with this immigration attorney, I am reminded every day of the importance of my work. As I learned to use my stickers spontaneously, I realized my ambitions to fight for my community did not need to wait for the perfect moment. It had to start now, with each small step and every bit of knowledge I gained. I no longer wait for the perfect moment but create it instead.