Caroline
Hi. My name is Caroline. When I was 5 years old, I watched Confessions of a Teenaged Drama Queen, a movie featuring Lindsey Lohan, in which, during the last 25 minutes feature an extremely dramatic scene where Lohan falls backward into a shopping cart, mid performance. Almost immediately after, I grabbed our Little Tikes shopping cart, hopped on the arm of the couch, and fell back into it. Only, there wasn’t a movie producer, stunt double, or director to advise me against that, and I effectively broke my shoulder bone. I didn’t shed a single tear. Less than five years later, I was involved in a recess game of kickball. I punted a ball as hard as I could, and in an aggressive attempt to score a homerun on the almost entirely male team, I started turning corners in an unsafe way. Rounding third base towards home, I stepped on a leg of my sweatpants, tripped, fell and broke my elbow. I walked to the nearest recess aid and told them I needed to go to the nurse. A few years later, I was riding my bike after school, took a turn too sharply, and when I tried to catch myself, I broke my wrist. I got up, dusted myself off, and walked my bike back to my house to tell my mom I might’ve hurt myself. In total, I’ve broken my right arm three times, in all of the places my joints bend.
Though minor injuries like breaking your arm seem trivial, for me, they serve as small microcosms as the person I have long since grown into being. Breaking my shoulder bone captures my endless curiosity; my never-ending desire to try to one-up someone, especially if they express doubt about my capabilities. Breaking my elbow playing kickball perfectly encapsulates the competitive fire that drives nearly all of my behavior, while subtly highlighting, and perhaps maybe is the root of my rampant, raging feminism. Breaking my wrist showcases my mental toughness, the iron mind that has slowly been crafted over a 20-year existence, starting with physical pains such as breaking my bones, moving toward mental and emotional challenges.
When I meet new people, I often find myself being reflective about where I came from, and how it has shaped me into the person that I present myself as being. I am stubborn, occasionally self-righteous, always competitive, sometimes too judgmental, empathetic, and always kind to strangers first. I never shy away from a good challenge, and I never lose sight of the end goal set out in front of me. I lack terribly with attention to detail, and too often I get lost in the big picture, without stopping to consider the tiny details that matter. My greatest strengths are my greatest weaknesses. I am headstrong to a fault, making my assertive, confident nature sometimes my greatest vice. I am intimidating and scary, and many people shy away from me for sake of not getting caught in my fire. However, those who risk their safety to be close to my fire, often find that I am a fun-loving, out-going person who’s fire actually brightens people’s days, rather than burning them down. Over the course of my relatively short existence, I have been called a pistol, a head case, a mule, a loose cannon, and while, sure, some of those things are relevant and describe me well, that doesn’t mean that my fire doesn’t serve a purpose. My fire fuels my passions; it pushes me to excel in all that I do. It makes me who I am. So, I encourage you, whenever you meet another pistol like me, open your mind, and let the fire warm you rather than burn you.