For as long as I could remember, I've been obsessed over what my future could look like. In every senecio my curious mind came up with, from an astronomer to a sports journalist; it came with a college education. However, I knew that it would be a struggle to get there, I had no clue what I was doing, and I had no money to be fully secure and successful in that goal. Yet, I'm doing it anyway, alone or scared, I'm still trying to follow my dreams. Education has always been a core part of who I am and who I want to be, and it puts me on a path that my parents have never been down. My dad has always been a blue-collar worker, and my mom went to cosmetology school; both have never been to college. maybe that is the scary part, or maybe its the finances. Honestly, I'm not really sure. However, it's never been scary enough to deter me from going; I will go to college, I will get a bachelors and masters degree, and I will follow the plan I created no matter how much I have to adapt the steps to get there. My education means that I have the opportunity to explore new things, create new opportunities, and build a completely different future for myself than anyone else could have. When I close my eyes at night I dream of all the possibilities I could build, and all the things I could do in college; no matter how scary it may seem. That is why it is one of the most important phases in my life that I have ever wanted to get to. Although I am not entirely sure of who I will end up being, or what I'll end up doing; I know for a fact that I have wanted to leave an impact. That impact could come from my life story, the pieces of it that I've told countless of times, for countless of things. Or, it could come from my work, maybe I'll be the first female head coach for a hockey team, or I'll inspire people through my storytelling and screenwriting, maybe I'll revolutionize the way we study space or the way that we think. The possibilities are endless, and they excite me constantly. No matter what the outcome of my life is, I want to give people connection to themselves, to others, to new perspectives, to fun stories and interests, and so much more. My impact and legacy will (hopefully) inspire others to live their lives no matter how scary, or unstable it can be. Because every day is a new opportunity to find yourself, carve your future, and get inspired. I know that I want people to be able to look at me and my life and see that sentiment bleed through everything I've have the opportunity to do.

Everyone around me has said that my dad and I are the same person in a different format; I know that to be true, but me and my dad have qualities that don't align. For example, my dad is a blue collar worker, and I want to go to college. Plus, my dad has been to jail, and I have not ever gotten in any trouble in school. A college degree gives me the opportunity to be, as my dad says, "a better version of himself". A degree opens up opportunities for me that my dad never had, and continues to help me distance myself from inheriting the worst parts of himself. I not only have a chance to make my dad proud by becoming a better version of him, I have an opportunity to become a better version of myself too. College gives me the chance to explore my interests, gain new opportunities, and go into a career field that I am passionate about. That impacts the people that come after me, the nieces, nephews, cousins, and children that see all the ways that me and my dad are similar, yet the paths we ended up on that make us different. I have the chance to become a person that generations after me look up to, not an example of what lifestyle to steer clear of. I have always been asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" Each year, my answer has changed; I wanted to be a baker, an astronomer, a paramedic, a mortician, a sports journalist, a teacher, and a writer. All of theses aspirations have had one thing in common, I wanted to go to college for them. See, I have wanted to go to college since I was eleven; while my aspirations may have changed, the dream to go to college hasn't. Personally, a college degree would mean that I can try out my interests and aspirations, and figure out what my ultimate passion truly is. My curiosity not only makes me more interesting, it gives me a new chance to learn all sorts of things, giving me more experience no matter what my final degree of career choice is. I may not know the final answer to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" However, I do know where I want the next phase of my life to take me, I want to go to college to explore my interests and develop my skills. During High school I have dived deep into my interests; I read books and articles, I write blog posts, I analyze scripts, and I do Wikipedia deep dives on historical events and hockey players. I have always been interested about every aspect of English, History, film, space, and sports, and I have developed those interests into career aspirations and passions. I want to be able to be an educated person no matter what field I go into, and I want to leaven an impact on others to do the same. My passions continue to develop into something I can make into a career, and I continue to feed those passion and interests; giving me more experience, purpose, knowledge, and enjoyment of the aspirations I obsess over.

Ever since I was little I have loved four very specific things: creativity, cats, reading, and space. These things have followed me like a thread, tethering me to the person I am at my core. Even as those interests bloomed and branched out, those four things stayed with me. At seventeen years old, I still love being creative, but now I know that writing is one of my favorite depictions of my creativity. In addition, I love reading, but this interest has branched out. I do really love reading, but I also love watching video essays about random topics; reading articles about fashion and politics; and looking at fan discourse of my favorite TV shows, songs, and movies. However, to some people, there are only two things about me that are important: I am Bisexual, and I am a woman. These two pieces of myself are microscopic, it's a small part of who I am. Yet, in the growing landscape of the world, I am faced with an impossible task; I have to be both in a world that doesn't seem to want me to be either. Watching my back has never been fun, I used to do it when my headphones were up too loud and it was dark in the morning, making me fearful something would go wrong. Its the same feeling I get walking around town, slowly becoming scared of every noise and honk. However, this feeling had changed when I came out as bisexual. At first, there was no paranoid feeling to who I was, but eventually it came back. I would read the news, I would hold my girlfriends hand out in public, or I would listen to the peers around me talk about their "views" against my sexuality, and that feeling of paranoia would hit me hard. The worst part was when the people in my own community would share their "views" of who I was; I'm not gay enough to truly be apart of the community, but I not straight enough to fully fit into the box of heteronormativity. For a while, the least interesting part of myself, was an all-consuming piece of my identity. I was trying so hard to not be the stereotypes unwillingly thrust upon me; I heard that "It is just a phase" , or that I was going to be a "cheater" for the simple reason that I liked both genders. Being a woman, I knew that the obstacles I would face in life would be insurmountable, but that struggle was never an internal struggle. However, the battle I've faced simply being bisexual from both people that are "just like me" and people who think I'm "disgusting" is personal; its a struggle that others have made me feel so unsure about that I lost the person I was trying to build, and I started slowly trying to fit into a box too small for me. Pursuing writing is something that I've always been interested in, and seeing the ways that stories like mine have been told continues to inspire my career goals. Maybe I'll end up as the journalist advocating for LGBTQ+ autonomy and equality, or maybe I'll be the screenwriter writing pieces of myself into the queer storylines and characters I write. I am passionate about writing because I know that being queer can be the least interesting thing about a person, there is so much to tell about "the queer experience" and I want to be one of the people that gets to tell the stories that preserve queer history for everyone just like me.