My Vision Statement.

My professor planted a seed in my brain, and honestly, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. We'd discuss everything from current events to societal shifts, culture, and crisis management. It's genuinely rare for me to feel both seen and comfortable at the same time, but with him, I could be my awkward, shy, funny, and smart self all at once. I felt safe, and he absolutely cultivated that environment. He had this skill for questioning us so deeply that sometimes I'd have a sudden "aha" moment, and then he'd just say, "You don't have to answer, I just want you to think about it." And honestly? I would think about it, not for a grade, but for myself and my own growth. 

The whole flood started when I had to create my vision statement. Mine read: "explore and embrace my moral curiosity, free from the confines of my upbringing and cultural background, as I strive to understand the world and my purpose within it." As I finished his class and moved on with life, that statement stuck. It became a constant reminder, a little mental sticky note. This was the seed that finally pushed me to start interrogating my existence, the way I was raised, and how it might truly be sabotaging my life and hindering me from becoming the true version of myself that God intended.

I started thinking about that little girl, the girl who desperately wanted to be seen but was simultaneously terrified of people because she was taught young that family doesn't mean protection, friends don't mean trust, and "I love you" doesn't mean "I won't hurt you." That's a brutal curriculum. This was the girl who had to step into a parental role when her own parents weren't available. My entire foundation, my whole way of life as I knew it, has been built on lies, hurt, pain, and trauma.

I even had a family member tell me my silence was a "turn-off." My silence. The thing that kept me safe, protected me from getting hurt, from saying the wrong thing, from being seen. It kept me in my head and out of the way. I still can't wrap my mind around how my safety was a turn-off for him, as if I wasn't already silently battling my own demons, as if he didn't play a part in creating them. I disgrace…The truth is, it takes a village to raise a child, and it also takes a village to absolutely fuck ruin that child's whole life.