As a child, I often found it hard to express myself in any way, I felt different and isolated from everyone around me. The other kids found me odd, so while they played on the playground and told each other stories, I would sit alone and daydream stories of my own, and eventually I began writing the stories out on paper. This became my new safe haven, it felt like a magnificent secret only for me, that I had created a world of my own that none of the other kids could take from me. As I got older, writing became my favorite pastime, not only writing stories, but also letters, and essays, anything I thought. I felt a strange kind of pride in seeing my words on paper, and I felt even more proud when others would gush about how quickly I could write, and how neat my handwriting was. My 6th grade year, COVID hit, and I began feeling depressed. I felt like things were hopeless, and I developed severe anxiety. I shut out my family, my friends, everyone, until one day my mom walked into my room holding a journal, she told me to write out all my feelings, that it would make me feel better. I had never thought about writing about myself, but once I started writing in my journal I couldn't stop, and since then I have written in my journal every day for the past six years, and have filled up three journals so far. In 2024, I lost my best friend to suicide, it was one of the hardest things I have ever faced in my life. At the time he and I had been in theater together, and the play we had been rehearsing for got cut. My theater teacher decided to put on another show, but I asked her if I could write one instead. In the following three months I wrote a one act comedy which was then performed by myself and the theater class. I often had people ask ; "How did you do it? How did you find the strength to write a play, let alone a comedy, right after your best friends death?" The answer is simple, writing is my therapy. I wanted to write a play that would mirror the joy and laughter my best friend brought into my life. Writing that play saved my life, and pulled me out of a deep depression. In college, I would love to either major in creative writing or journalism, both have interested me for a very long time. I would also like to take a grammar class to improve my writing. Due to my family life, I did not go to school until second grade, and I did not enter a public school until I was in eighth grade, I feel that I missed a lot of important information pertaining to writing, and I would love to learn more. I hope to take these classes mainly because I am in the process of writing a novel, as well as a series of short stories, and I want them to be properly formatted and grammatically correct. Journalism has peaked my interest because I love to do essays, and learn new things, whether it be about politics, media, or just interesting facts. I still have not decided exactly what my future will be, but there is no doubt in my mind that writing will follow me no matter what job I take.

Since I was a child I have been infatuated with theater, from watching "The Greatest Showman" in theaters with wide eyes, to giving a one man show of Mulan to my parents in the living room, theater has always been a huge part of my life. Throughout the years my goals have changed, I would love to end up having a real acting career in film, but I am highly aware of the competitive and harsh conditions it would take to get there. I would like to minor in theater, and continue acting throughout my college career before moving on to more serious acting. I have been in theater for five years now, and I have had plenty of experience in being an actress, as well as taking on the role of stage manager. I have played in many well known shows, such as "The Wizard of Oz," "Clue," "The Importance of Being Ernest," and "Little Women," as well as two plays I wrote on my own "UFOMG" and "Elf Off The Shelf." What I hope to ultimately give back to the theater world, is fresh creative ideas. I believe that so often ideas are just reused and overdone, I would like to contribute new stories, new songs, new styles. I would also like to prove to myself and others that even if you come from a small town background, or a poor family, it is possible to make your dreams come true and make it big. I want to prove it to my younger self, who never felt like she had the opportunities that others did. What truly inspired me to want a future in acting was The Muppets, strange, I know. When I was a child I grew up in a very strict household, I was not allowed to watch most of the shows my friends did during their childhood. The first time I watched The Muppet Show I was sitting at the family computer with my dad, he clicked on a youtube video of the "Manamana" song, and ever since then I was hooked. The Muppet Show is all about theatrics, I was infatuated with the costumes, the guest stars, the stage layout, all of it. It gave off this warm vibe that made me feel safe, accepted, and purposeful. With every episode of The Muppet Show that I watched I believed more and more that theater is where my heart truly belonged. I have dedicated years of my life to the arts, and have made many amazing friends and memories along the way, theater has truly saved my life again and again. It has given me an escape from home, I place to put all my energy, and a family that I will cherish forever.

Mental health has knocked me down again and again, relentlessly and continuously. I often feel like it is a rotten vine that has rooted deep down in my family, destroying any hopes any of us have of thriving in life. My family has had a long history of mental health issues, most of which went unmediated and without therapy all their lives. This has caused a bit of a heredity in my family to ignore mental health issues in themselves and their children. This has not only caused severe depression in my life, but also my siblings lives and cousins. Depression and anxiety have held the reins on my life for years, and have prevented me from feeling normal and being able to connect with other people. In recent years, mental health has taken over completely, it has become like a dark cloud that sits overhead, and no matter where I go or what I do, it follows behind and infects everyone around me. In 2024 I lost my best friend to suicide, and as morbid as it sounds I cannot help but imagine that my dark cloud spread over to him, and poisoned him in the same way it did I. Losing my best friend tipped me over the edge, I had begun to seriously self harm, and spent days alone, I developed an eating disorder, and things got so bad that my parents finally put me in therapy. Although therapy helped me a great deal, it is not made to heal people, only to help people accept, and I cannot accept the death of my friend. Mental health has reshaped every ideal I have, in the way I view myself, my peers, my family, and the world. Often when I think of my peers, I wonder why they do not have more empathy? Why is it still acceptable in today's society to tell somebody to kill themselves, or to make jokes about such a heavy topic. It's a terrible thing to admit, but sometimes I wish that my peers could feel what I felt that day, when I was told my best friend was dead, then maybe they would see things in a new light, like I was forced to. It changed how I feel about my family as well, part of me became hyper aware of the challenges everyone faces day to day, so I began checking on my siblings and cousins each day, asking them about their day, just to make sure they felt seen. It even changed my views on strangers, I used to feel such a negativity towards strangers for no reason, because I was convinced everyone was out to get me, but I realized that even strangers have lives, families, struggles. I began talking to strangers, something I would have never thought of doing, I got involved in community services, church, school, every part of me changed. My goals changed, my whole life plan changed, as a sophomore my only goal in life was to get out, get out of my house, my school, my town, I had no ambition or passion. But when my best friend died it was like he took the cloud with him, I saw things so much clearer, and I knew that my new goal was to make people happy. Only a month after he died I wrote my first stage-play, a one act comedy that was performed by myself and a group of kids from the theater department. Hearing the laughter from the audience was the only answer I needed, this was my future. Since then I have written another play, a collection of short stories I hope to publish soon, and the beginning of a novel. If I can bring people joy within this dark and ever so changing world, that's enough for me. My views on the world are continually changing, as I grow and learn more I find myself finding the joy I lost as a child in the small things, even things that are ephemeral or small. Every day I try to look at things from a new perspective. And although there are things I have still yet to accept, the pain is receding a bit at a time.