Danielle Lindsay

My name is Danielle Lindsay and my narrative is nothing of a fairy tale; it doesnt have the planned out perfect life or happy ending where everyone is satisfied but it has something far greater than any fairy godmother could conjure. It contains the raw, vulgar, extraordinary, peculiar truth and it boils down to one word: life. Life is filled with ambiguities and each choice that you make can uncover the vagueness and allow you to explore and venture to make your own definition for life. For me, it first started in tenth grade, I went through a lot, experienced my first inquiry about my sexuality, lost a friend gained the friend again, and then lost the friend again-- it was a very toxic complicated relationship, struggled mentally, lost my faith, rebelled. I was receiving a vast amount of lemons masked as oranges. And then I read this book Every Last Word, introducing me to writing poems and it changed my life, it became my lifeline, my outlet. It allowed me to express, deep inner thoughts that I could never dare speak out loud to someone. I used to kick everyone out because I didnt want them to see how much I was actually hurting on the inside but by writing I was able to share with them how I felt. I have grown to be independent and have developed skills in leadership, communication, public speaking, volunteering, mentoring, participation, attentiveness, and writing. I have steered away from my monotonous way of living and started making decisions that were out of my comfort zone but not drastically changing who I am. I have discovered a brand new side of me and it has allowed me to reach out and make connections so that I wasn't just candidly living but I was thriving in every manner of speaking. I want to push myself and I know that while there will be challenges along the way but it will be worthwhile because passions, better yet, ambitions take time, dedication, forbearance. I wrote something once in tenth grade that keeps me going to this day I live so that I can look back and tell my old self you were good enough, you didnt fail, no you succeed in every messy beautiful way. So with each trying step, you have to be kind to people, offer theme pieces of advice you wish you couldve gotten to avoid the mistakes that led to my unraveling. Although life has an undoubtful amount of hardships I have been blessed with a buoyant amount of dreams, people to call my friends, and a mind that is no longer demeaning, my happiness is no longer a facade instead my happiness is now true, honest, euphoric, and unimaginably phenomenal; so now I take this and pass it off to someone else in need no longer needing the clutch that kept me safe for so long.