Marissa
Cheyenne Intro: Marissa is a soft-spoken, kind, caring, family obsessed, kitty loving, amazing young woman, with a great head on her shoulders, a great personality, and a great religion that holds her together.
Lauren Intro: Marissa is a pancake eating, kitty cat loving, dancing queen, who loves to read books. She’s also a great friend.
Larissa Intro: Marissa is an ice cream loving, nap taking, graceful dancer, cat enthusiast, has hometown pride, and is a kind, true friend.
My Intro: It’s easy to let others describe you. They think they know you. Even my friends, who you just heard, who have known me for years have ideas in their head of who I am. But it’s easier to tell you myself.
You know the movie A Cinderella Story? The original one. Not the remakes. The real one with Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray. Yes, that dreamboat. There’s been a quote from that movie that I’ve tried to keep with me all these years later.
“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”
That quote sums up my entire life. It’s motivation to not shy away from everything life asks you to tackle for fear of failure. However, that’s exactly what I did.
Hi, my name is Marissa, and I can’t talk about myself without talking about home, the places and the people that I grew up with. It’s defined me. I like knowing everybody in a small town, being able to go anywhere and see a familiar face. I love walking out my front door and seeing nothing but a field and trees around, no other houses visible. It was comforting at graduation when each name was called, I knew who everyone was and often had a history with each of them. Some may think it’s a simple-minded life. They’ll say, “You have to get out of this town and see what the world has to offer.” Some do, but many do not.
It’s a strange thing, really. Young 18-year olds finally searching for that freedom they’ve been craving. Going to college, finally getting away from that one stoplight town. The plot twist is, the majority of those that I graduated with, even older and younger graduates of my high school, end up right where the left from. Trying college out for a semester and realizing they’d rather commute to a local school than be away and staying on campus. You’ll go to Friday night football games and think “Hey, what’s so and so doing here,” and then you’ll figure out they transferred back to our local college. Why does nobody ever leave Newville?
I use my where I grew up as a starting definition of myself, because I’m all those things. I can also say I have a younger brother, a cat, a family so big that one starts to lose track of who’s who. I love to dance, read, and binge Netflix shows. I am not however, one of the many that gave up
on a college away from home, even when it seemed like the easy way out.
Here I am in my third year of college, finally enjoying myself. It’s taken two tough years to get where I’m at, to socialize and have people that I call friends. It’s been quite the ride.
I’m loud and carefree when I’m comfortable with the people I’m with, and shy and avoid eye contact with those I’m not. It keeps me balanced.
That quote that I talked about earlier gave me so much motivation as a child. It felt as if I could do anything and not let anything stop me from my accomplishments. Things change though.
I’ve realized as I’ve grown up that we’re all unfortunately forced into situations that we don’t want to be in, with people we don’t know. It’s all a part of growing up, and I feel like in some ways growing up with new surroundings with new people is exactly what I needed, even when it almost never felt like it.
So here I am at the cusp of my 20s and have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life, surprise, surprise, but I still have that quote from that 2004 movie and remember that without fear, I can be whoever I want.