Victoria
I consider myself to be an enigma. For those who never had to memorize SAT vocab words in high school, an enigma is something that is puzzling or mysterious. It takes awhile to understand an enigma which is why I particularly identify with the word. Fall semester of my freshman year of college, all two of my friends and I would spend our Saturday nights looking up “get to know you” questions simply because we were bored and too anxious to socialize with others. Although this seems like a mundane activity, I enjoyed it. There’s something therapeutic about rambling about yourself and your past experiences to your best friends. One of the classic questions that always got brought up was to think of one word to describe yourself. My friends were almost too easy to describe with one word. However, once it became my turn, I drew a huge blank.
The first word that came to mind was “shy”. For as long as I could remember, my family always described me as shy. My dad has always reminded me to say hi to people in public even when I was uncomfortable and my mom taught me to be confident enough to ask my teachers questions in class. However, shy isn’t a word that my friends would use to describe me. Once I’m comfortable in a specific environment, it’s the last word people would think of. I also think there is a lot more to my personality than just “shy”. There’s so many other words to explain myself. I don’t want to limit myself to just quiet.
After having difficulty thinking of a word to portray myself, I made it my mission to see what others thought. I began asking everyone in my life from my friends to my family to my co-workers which word they would use to describe me. This seems like a trivial issue, but it was something that I really struggled with. I was able to take every word that people gave me and overthink the reasons why that word wasn’t a good representation.
I kept track of the words people thought resembled me and noticed some similarities. Some examples were reliable, loyal, considerate, responsible, and kind. These are all very thoughtful words and I was happy that everyone thought so highly of me, but they had something in common. They all dealt with other people. I knew that I always put the ones closest to me above myself, but these words did not settle well. I wanted to get words like “fun” or “adventurous”, but nobody thought of those.
Senior year of high school, we had class superlatives. My friends were all either super athletic or super smart. I knew that they would all receive superlatives for their talents and I would most likely win nothing since I had concluded that I was simply mediocre. I read the superlatives out to my friends while we guessed who would receive each one. We got to “Most Dependable” and I became speechless. What does that even mean? My friends all made eye contact with each other and wrote my name down. I was confused about why people would vote me for that specific superlative. As time went on, random people would approach me and tell me that they voted for me. I was puzzled, but I went with it. I ended up winning the superlative and I was content. It didn’t really register as to why I won the superlative, I was just happy to be recognized and included among my friends.
It took some time, but I finally learned to accept my personality traits. I realized that people thought of those words to describe me because they thought I was genuine and real. My friends have admitted that they don’t know what they would do without me. I plan their events, listen to their rants, and cheer them on more than anyone else. It took a lot of convincing, but I finally understood that there’s nothing wrong with being reliable, loyal, considerate, responsible, and kind. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how outgoing and exciting you are, it matters that you are a genuinely nice human being. I’m glad that others look at me with such positivity. Whenever I’m in a bad mood, I think about the optimistic words people related to me. I’m able to see my “Most Dependable” sash from Senior Year and remember that I really am worthy.