When I was a kid, my mom didn’t have to be particularly observant. I was unapologetically emotional, wearing my heart on my sleeve for everyone to see. All I knew were open arms waiting for me to come home, getting off the bus from school, loving my happiness and sadness and everything in between.
Then I came to Hotchkiss. What was once a myriad of emotions were narrowed to just three: stressed, sad, and homesick. I didn’t know how to tell my mom that I was being crushed under the weight of the school we’d thought would be perfect for me, so I didn’t. On April 22nd, 2023 when she came up with my little brother for an early birthday celebration, I pretended everything was fine. I smiled and blew out my candles, hiding any clue that
my room was a biohazard, I couldn’t find the motivation to brush my teeth at night, and reading a single chapter of The Samurai’s Garden felt like climbing Mt. Everest.
l was sitting in the common room where I’d spent the last three hours trying and failing to write a single comment for my annotated bibliography when, suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I sat with my dorm faculty desperately trying to count five things I could hear, four things I could smell, three things I could touch… I thought that this was it. I wasn’t cut out for Hotchkiss. I wasn’t smart, or talented, or strong enough to be here.
I started this reflection last spring, and I thought I knew how to end it. I had just become a dorm proctor and a Blue Lead Ambassador after two years of being rejected as an orientation leader. I’d become the head of St. Luke’s after being rejected, not just from their board, but from every board I applied to my freshman year. Looking at my list of accomplishments, it was easy to feel like I had grown.
But when I got into college this fall, something shifted. I had spent so long evaluating myself the way schools do: through achievements, roles, and titles. Now that I was in, I realized I didn’t know who I was without them.
But if Hotchkiss has taught me anything, it is that it’s okay not to know. I don’t know who I am yet, I don’t know how to fit these four years into the neat, sequential story that life refuses to be, and I don’t know if the only thing people will remember from this reflection is my hardships.
But I do know that struggling doesn’t make you weak, and it doesn’t mean that you’re in the wrong place. As I look back to who I was as a freshman, I’m so proud of how much I’ve learned. Hotchkiss showed me how to love life, even when it’s hard.
I love looking up at the sky as I’m walking back from rehearsals, black and beautiful, as if it exists just for me. I love showing the faculty kids how to cross the monkey bars, knowing that I can play a small part in teaching them that they are appreciated and important. And, most of all, I love the people who’ve stuck with me through some of the best and worst years of my life.
I wouldn’t have traded any of this for an easier high school experience.
So if you’re ever sitting in a common room, unable to breathe, and thinking that no one could possibly understand, I hope you know that you’re not alone.
