All the way back since grade school, It felt like my mind was climbing directly behind my peers, but finishing the race last almost every time. I was endlessly lagging minutes late in what everyone seemed to process in mere seconds.
In Kindergarten, I vividly recall swaying back and fourth on the swing sets, shooting myself into the sky like I was flying into someplace magical. All the while, I passionately sang Disney princess songs aloud. I wished I could stay in the moment forever. I felt like I was living a dream.
Moving onto high school: Aztec Singers. The show choir. Where do I even begin?
Everything about Aztec Singers, the singing, the dancing, and the performances, were like ringing bells calling in my passions to give it a try. I was quickly part of an amazing team. We all shared a vibrating passion of performance deep inside that pushed us to connect together perfectly. There was one huge problem yet to come, a problem that unknowingly shoved me so far away into dead silence. A problem that completely obliterated all my flourishing dreams for Aztec Singers.
Not a single day of practice would pass when I wasn't brutally criticized for a thousand frustrating imperfections that filled my singing and dancing on what should've otherwise been a picture of pure perfection. I knew that each mistake I made tragically slowed down the whole team. With every frequent error, I felt like I inched another step closer to each student's "bad side." Of course, many of these outrageous thoughts were only in my head, no one elses.
I'm outrageous, hyper, and sometimes insane. A performing group, a home for these eccentric qualities to shine strongest, felt like a ruthless destruction that crushed every bit of my morale. I hardly ever socialized with anyone in the team. I felt like the mere thought of me in any one of their minds painted a picture of a disastrous klutz whose only purpose was to weigh down the glory of everyone else. Every time I did speak to someone, I was haunted by the hateful words that crept in their mind, which only pushed me farther into dead silence. Day after day, my over reactive imagination of everyone elses incessant thoughts of hatred killed me deep inside for a whole year. I never told a single member how I felt. After all, how could you ever spill your most antagonizing problem to those you believed hated you?
One teammate in tennis sympathized with the negative outlook I had in Aztec Singers. Thinking she could find probable answers to contradict all the ridiculous paranoia in my mind, she asked an Aztec Singer, "Why does everyone not like Lauren?" He replied, "Because she always makes mistakes and its frustrating." His response bitterly confirmed every pessimistic thought of the members that ever swept into my mind since the beginning of the year. On a daily basis, I'd been pointlessly struggling to fill my negative attitude with sheer positivity just to push away any tears in the back of my eyes. Finally realizing all the negativity was the truth freed all the tears I ever held back. After school, Aztec Singers held practice when I was still an emotional trainwreck. Seeing me cry sent some of the members welcoming arms to a circle of warmth around me. I opened up about how I felt to one kindhearted member. She told me, "Lauren, trust me, none of us hate you. Yes, sometimes we get frustrated when you make mistakes, but we all mess up, so no one here hates you for it personally." Her words finally removed any unsettling thoughts and started a fresh new attitude for the rest of the year.
We can never be 100% sure how the next day, the next hour, or even the next minute and the next thought will unfold. I learned all of this through the hard way by genuinely experiencing head on the bitter consequences in pessimistically formulating the false truth in everyone's minds and allowing it to painfully kill me each day. You should never allow people's taunting thoughts you may have individually constructed to dictate your every emotion. You should always allow a light of positivity inside for you to brightly glow even in the darkest of times. You should never waste your precious days moping on every outrageous negative aspect when you could be dreaming positively about the future ahead. Had I done everything I just typed would have saved me dead friendships with team members, a crippled self esteem, and an endless heartache.
