Move-in Day August 2013: He didn’t see me, but that was okay. I was used to not being seen. He just walked past me and started unpacking my stuff. I silently cursed at myself for filling up two cars with all my crap when I very well knew there was not enough room for all of it, me, a roommate, and all of her crap in that tiny St. Mary’s closet Le Moyne tried to pass off as a dorm room. I just stood on the curb watching as he and a troop of orientation committee members dismantled my blockade of stuff, threatening to ooze out of the back of my dad’s car. The obvious thing would have been for me to start grabbing things myself since it was my stuff after all, but, I didn’t want to go anywhere near that car if it meant he’d notice me. I couldn’t have him notice me. What would I do then?

I just wasn’t that girl. The one whose hair effortlessly cascades down her back, each strand a stream of smooth water flowing over the bumps of her shoulders. The one who seems to have a perpetual secret resting at the corner of her lips each time she smiles, that makes you want to know her and what it is. The one people immediately gravitate towards when she enters a room, her energy a bright light attracting the moths.

I wasn’t built to be her, but I spent most of my life wishing I was that girl. I wanted to be plucked from the wall my petals had grown into. To be taken from underneath the heavy shadow and absorb the light. Just once, I wanted to be the girl who got the flower-grams on Valentine’s Day and was asked to prom by the guy who spelled it out in M&Ms on a pizza instead of having to arrange dates with guy friends.

When it came time to start college, I thought, maybe this will be my opportunity. I could be someone completely different for a new set of people, but I just ended up being the same person I had always been because you can’t run away from yourself. And when my feet finally got tired and I had to stay, I got to know myself, not the girl who was always wishing to be somebody else.

No, I’m not that girl, I’m a different girl. The one who rather stay at home to read a book (most of the time) than go out. The one who sets her mind to something and does everything she needs to do in order to make it come true. The one whose kinky hair is always in a bun and her glasses round like Harry Potter’s and is still beautiful. The one who doesn’t care if certain people notice her or like her because she’s happy just loving herself.

Yeah, I’m that girl.