On September 1, 2023, when my mother texted me and said she was picking me up early, I thought it was for a good reason. I thought there was a surprise, or that she just wanted me home early for some reason. I was happy to leave my school early. But as she held my hand and told me that my step-dad had passed away, all joy was drained out of my life. It has been gray ever since. The weeks after my dad passed away got harder and harder. I had to get used to his absence, the silence he left behind. I was left with memories that would only make the pain that much more unbearable. I had known and loved him my whole life. I never imagined he would die. You never think that your parents can die -- you always naively assume they'll be around forever. Guilt was a shadow of the grief -- it was right behind it. When my father passed, I felt guilty at the fact that I didn't appreciate him enough while he was here. I wish I could go back in time and talk to him more, sit with him, spend more time with him, but even then, it won't be enough. I don't know if anyone can 'recover' from grief. I believe things can get easier as time goes on, as you are forced to move on after losing someone, but as long as you love them, the grief will always be there. I will say that it's gotten easier for me to deal with it. I try to remember all of the times I had with him without getting too sad. I allow myself to cry over all of it, and it's good to know that I have a supportive family who is feeling the same way. My step-father's death, in a way, brought me closer to my step-sister and my mom as we try to support each other. I just wish my father was here to see how close we are. I wish he was here regardless. I'm never going to get used to his absence, but I try to move on with life, doing what I can, appreciating things while they are here. I'm going forward with my work in theatre and writing and plan to major in both when I get to college. I also hope to become an actor and writer in the future. I hope to live my life doing what I love, and I hope -- I know -- that, somewhere, my dad is proud of me.

I can vividly remember sitting on a bench outside of my school writing stories (mainly inspired by Disney movies) in a tattered notebook with a pencil covered in bite marks. I remember seeing all of my classmates running on the playground, playing basketball, dancing in the shade; I remember stabbing at small ants that crawled onto my paper and my clothes; I remember envisioning myself as a young writer. Even now, the vision is the same: I am a young woman sitting at my desk by a window, sipping coffee and writing in a journal. The house is quiet aside from the sound of led scribbling on paper. I can imagine myself writing all sorts of stories that aim to bring about experiences and stories that are rarely heard or listened to in the real world. As I've grown, I've realized the importance of uplifting voices of those you don't get a voice, who are constantly silenced in the real world. I have been using writing to tell the stories of people who often don't get to tell them themselves. My main goal as a writer will be to spread awareness on important issues through the stories I tell and the messages behind them. To be more specific: I am currently working on a novel that will aim to tell the story of a young bisexual man as he navigates the world around him after realizing his sexuality. He resides in a community that is not accepting of those like him, and has to learn how to prioritize both them and his lover. This idea of being at odds with oneself -- of wanting to support a community that does not support you, while also wanting to put yourself first -- is one that I have always wanted to depict in my art. I think it is important to write about the many contradictions that make up our lives and who we are while also questionable the many beliefs that still make up people's lives today, beliefs that can and have been harmful to other people. The other side of raising awareness to issues or prejudice is making people -- especially marginalized groups -- feel empowered and heard. All people deserve to know that their stories are real and valid, and I hope to make as many people as possible feel seen through my art. I have hope that my writing will not only inspire people to take action against prejudice, but that it will also inspire people to create their own art that evokes questions about the human race. I know that my work is inspired by other people's art -- music, visual art, dance. All of my writing is a product of other people's thoughts and experiences. I just twist it and make it my own, something that I can proudly call mine. Hopefully, someone at some point will read my writing and feel inspired to make something similar. Writing is one of the most important things in my life, and I'm excited to move forward with it.

Some would say that the almost apocalyptic state of the world would be enough to make someone not want to pursue the arts, would make them want to give up and throw themselves by the wayside. But for me, the state of the world is enough to make me want to make more art, to connect with more people, to bring about comfort for some and take it away from others by talking about issues that often go ignored. I feel it is my job, as a writer, to elevate the voices of those who are often silenced. I write stories about characters that aren't real and place them in situations that are: queer characters experiencing discrimination in their communities; Black characters facing decades of trauma; female characters being abused at the hands of abusive men, and vice versa; and so on. What keeps me going is the silencing, the injustice, the rage and the emptiness that comes when you are exposed to such things -- the pain can be overbearing that the only thing you can do is do something about it, and that thing is art. Art tells the stories we don't want to hear, the ones we need to hear. I want to make art that tells my story, stories that others may not have ever heard. Given that nowadays, artificial intelligence is making ground and taking over the world, is more important than ever, to me, to continue to tell real human experiences. I don't want to tell stories about total perfection, about everything going right, or even stories with one hundred percent perfect grammar. I want the messiness, I want the truth, because that is human. I don't want to live in a world where the stories we read are fake, made up by a generated robot that can feel nothing. I want humanity, I want realness. One of the books I am working on is about a pastor who falls in love with a man, and then has to deal with the inner turmoil and obstacles that naturally come along with being a queer Christian. He has to experience discrimination from his family and community and to come face to face with God and himself as he finally deals with this part of himself, a part he has been suppressing for so long. This book is an example of the type of stories I wish to convey -- unheard of, but real, and special to me. It's important to me to uplift those who need it the most, because by doing that, I am possibly uplifting the next writer who will likely write about experiences that even I haven't heard of. There's a whole world of stories out there to be told, some good, some bad, and they all deserve to be told

This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but here it goes: 'L'amour De Ma Vie [Over Now Extended Edit]', 'Therefore I Am', and 'What Was I Made For?' are my top three songs by Billie Eilish, in no particular order. It's easy to explain why the first one is my favorite: The song sounds so much different to what she's put out before, and especially different from the rest of the album, 'HIT ME HARD AND SOFT'. It's highly experimental and the listener can tell that Eilish was having fun recording it. The lyrics exhibit much sass as she is belittling this person she is talking about -- "You were so mediocre." "You're looking older lately, dating another baby." I admire how blunt she is and how unafraid she is to ruffle someone's feathers with her quips and jabs. And the production make the song hard to not dance to. 'Therefore I Am' is an interesting song, because the title and chorus quotes philosophy. Cogito, ergo sum -- 'I think, therefore I am'. The song seems to be referencing people that doubt Eilish's impact, stating that it doesn't matter what they think. She thinks she is the best at what she does, and so she is. She doesn't allow for outside opinions to sway her view of herself. She is settled in her idea of herself. I aspire to be like that one day -- settled, comfortable, immune to outside voices. The song reminds me to not take what others say so seriously, and simultaneously reminds me that whatever I think becomes what I am. If I believe I am not worth the comfort I so desire, if I believe I am not worth anything, and that I have no purpose, that is what I become -- a pessimistic nihilist, restless in herself. This restlessness, this hopelessness is not uncommon. Not to violently change gears, but I am one of many that relates to 'What Was I Made For?'. I have constantly questioned my true purpose in this world, wondered if I truly had one, or if I am just a background character of sorts, someone that serves no purpose other than decoration. I especially relate to the line of Eilish begging whoever is listening to not tell her boyfriend what she is experiencing -- 'it's not what he's made for'. No one else would be able to handle this type of torment. I can barely handle it myself. But it's good to know that someone like Eilish, who has presumably been confident enough to make songs like the ones mentioned, also has the confidence to make a song like this. She has the courage to be this vulnerable and real with herself and the world. All three songs simply existing in her discography are proof that one can exhibit traits like confidence and pride and still question their being at the end of the day. It's all human, it's all real, and that's why I love these songs so much.

I am a fan of Sabrina Carpenter because her music and overall persona is relatable and seems real compared to most celebrities' fake and out-of-touch personalities. She writes about experiences that most people can relate to and doesn't sugarcoat much of anything. She seems to genuinely enjoy her work -- and if she doesn't, and if she truly is a fake person, I would be none the wiser. It would just mean that she's THAT good of an actress. She seems like a sweet person that really hasn't let her unprecedented rise to fame affect her much or change her, or at least hasn't let it shown, and I really adore that about her. Her acting career specifically has impacted me, because her role on 'Girl Meets World' and other Disney Channel shows and movies made up my childhood. Those shows mean a lot to me (even if they aren't that good), and therefore, her and her acting mean a lot to me. I have vivid memories of sitting beside my bed (not on my bed, beside it) and watching 'Adventures in Babysitting', too young to know that it was actually a remake of a 1987 film and not an original film, and loving it anyway. I don't remember anything about the film, only the basic plot, and the cringy but nostalgic rap battle, but I do remember enjoying her. As for her music career, one of her earliest singles is 'Smoke and Fire' and that's one of the first songs I remember being obsessed with. I loved the lyrics (though I didn't truly understand them until later on) and I loved her voice on the song. It's still a song I love to this day. I greatly enjoy Sabrina's music and can't wait to see what she does in the future and how she impacts further generations.

A lot has happened this year, and most of it concerns a boy. I met a boy last year at theatre camp that I developed a crush on, and I can now say that I have been thinking about him for over a year. It's gotten to the point that he now appears in my dreams. I'm sure you can see where this is going. This year, he informed me that he might not be attending camp next year, and I started thinking about when the next time I would see him would be. Perhaps I'd bump into him at a grocery store on the street, or at a party where we find out that we have a mutual friend. Or maybe he comes to one of the shows that I happen to be starring in. But deep down I know the likelihood of us meeting again, whether he returns next year or not, is slim to none. And so, I pray that he remembers bits and pieces of me, standing in a white dress (or a nun costume -- we did Sister Act this year), staring off into the sunset. It would not be too far-fetched to say that Wildest Dreams (Taylor's Version) has made it to my 2024 soundtrack, not just because it is a great song, but because some (and I do mean SOME) of the lyrics relate to my current situation. I may never see that boy again, but in my dreams, he's pained in my mind's best colors. I may never see him again, and honestly, I'm alright with that. I've dedicated so much of my time and thoughts to this boy, and I had decided to take the first steps of finally being rid, or rather, 'Clean (Taylor's Version)', from him. He didn't do anything to me -- we didn't date, we just ended up as close-ish friends -- but I pretty much let him ruin my life, and he didn't and doesn't really know me. I would go to his Instagram profile and stare at his pictures almost daily, and now I rarely give him a second thought (except right now, since I'm writing an essay about him). I can feel myself getting clean of him, but "just because you're clean don't mean you don't miss it". I think these two songs perfectly showcase how 2024 is going for me. I miss him, but know I will only see him in my dreams, so it's best to just get as clean of him as possible. If I truly never see him again, I hope he knows how enchanted I was to meet him.

For most of my teenage life, I've been trying to portray the idea of knowing that though things will eventually change, the damage done will never fade. I've been trying to convey the utter fear that you will stay the same while the world around you changes. I've tried to find something, anything that could convey this feeling, and I finally found it in Olivia Rodrigo's song 'teenage dream'. In the last song of the standard version of 'GUTS' the singer asks herself, and whoever is listening, an important question: "They all say it gets better...but what if I don't?" In this song, Rodrigo shares her fear that as the world moves on, and she grows up, she will stay the same, and continue dealing with the same issues, keep having to rise against the same problems, keep having to heal from the same things, and I believe that this is a defining component of most teens' life: fear. The fear of never changing, and perhaps even of change itself; the fear of one's problems never vanishing like one would hope they would; the fear of staying as yourself, when being yourself is the hardest thing to do. What do you do when you look back on your life and realize that you did not grow, did not morph into something better, and only became a taller version of your younger self? What do you do when the pain persists though the thing that caused the pain has disappeared? One era of life I believe everyone can agree was a terrible time to be alive was 2020, during the Coronavirus pandemic. Everyone was stuck inside the house and therefore, their thoughts. We were forced to live with our issues, some of which we may have dug so deep into our souls that we forgot they existed. We were met with our trauma and pain and had to sit with it for a year. I was one of those people who almost gave in and gave up during the pandemic. I had just turned 13 -- the beginning of being a teenager -- and it sucks that my first memories of growing up and developing will be shrouded by memories of feeling intense feelings, of facing dark truths that I was too young to deal with on my own. I questioned everything about myself and the world around me -- I drove myself crazy, almost drove myself over the edge. And when we were finally able to go back into the real world, I was still in that dark place. The situation changed, but the feelings brought about still lingered. It was frustrating and scary, and something that people my age and older deal with -- and apparently something Rodrigo also experiences. Many people are still trying to recover from any past trauma that may have happened to them. We have all left a situation and found ourselves months or years later still feeling the same. It's hard, especially for people my age, to move on. We tend to cling to the feeling, especially if it's the only intensity we've ever known. Rodrigo was able to capture this feeling in her song. The line is repeated to show how desperately she, and other adolescents, need an answer, a solution to what we do when the world moves on while we stay centered in our pain.