“Dear Heavenly Father…” I whispered. “Thank you for this day and…” My voice grew soft. Then it all came pouring out. I told him everything. The pressure of feeling like I have to be perfect. All my troubles with my friends. They all came out. I left nothing unsaid. “Sam and Tracey are always fighting and…” I choked back a sob, then gave in the tears. I cried and cried, whispering hurt after hurt to God. My heart ached and my chest hurt. Tear after tear hit the blanket. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was tired of being pressured. I was tired of being the glue. I was tired of hiding everything. I was tired of comforting others and pretending I was strong, when truly, I was just falling apart.

This is me. The true me anyhow. The me no one sees. The quiet girl who learned only by listening. The over-achiever who got 100-110% on every test. The nerd. This is the quiet girl who lies under the waves.

Most people have what you might call a happy place; a place where they feel peaceful and at ease, relaxed. For me, that place is the water. We have much in common, the water and I. We both can be calm and beautiful, but can also be stirred to a tempest by things we cannot control. Tectonic plates, rumors, hurt. We can do nothing about it. So we hide, unsure of who we really are, or what we are to become.

For a long time, I was a quiet girl. The girl who never talked, who always hung in the background. I could never call anyone on the phone, I was too scared. I felt awkward in big groups, unsure of what to say next. Even now, being in a large group of popular girls scares me. I felt like I didn’t really belong anywhere. I felt like I was the outcast, the oddball out. The perfect one, the girl with the answers. Every move I made was watched by everyone. The slightest mistake would send everyone into an uproar. I was quieted; scared the next thing to come out of my mouth would be a target for ridicule. I never tried to shine; what if someone didn’t like the way I gleamed?

I had hidden my depths, and vented my feeling through words, the only thing I had ever truly understood. Sometimes I felt like it was just God, tears and I. In fact one of my poems started like this:
Wet and damp they fill me up
With sorrow, grief, and pain
Cold and hard they hit the floor
Like a silent falling rain
Home to all my feelings
I lock up deep inside
Home to all my hurt
I always tried to hide
(Tears
Copyright 2011)
These words helped me express how I was feeling, and once I had said my say (or in this case, written my say.) I felt like a door had been opened. A door that would help me see what I had unconsciously been looking for for so long.

Over time I began to see more clearly. I had begun to be my own kind of beautiful. I began to let go, not caring what other people thought. I wore crazy outfits and jumped in at random moments. I found myself in places I never dreamed I would be; preforming in the talent show, singing in front of the class, joking with my teachers. I began to laugh louder and more often then I had in a long time. I began to see the wonders of God. In Cherie Call’s It Passes All My Understanding, one of the choruses goes:
It passes all my understanding
How it all turned out just right
The distance that we live from the sun
The stars that shine at night
And we may prove that it was an accident
But how did it begin
It passes all my understanding


I had finally learned to let go. I had learned not to care what other people said about me. I learned to “let my light so shine before men.” (Matthew 5:16) I had finally learned to just be myself. And I found what I had been searching for for so long, the one thing no one could find for me. I found…myself.