I am poems are a thing of the past, right?

We did these poems the first Friday of seventh grade back in 2010.

It seemed so childish to write things about our lives when no one would really listen anyways.

Because who cared if we were the daughter of a loving mother and father?

Who cared about our lives in elementary school?

Who cared that our favorite food was pasta and our worst fear was growing up?

Because people only care for the things that involve them.

If something happens and no one is there to care, did it ever really happen at all?

I would like to think that I care.

Because I’ve been there.

We all have

Because I am the daughter of a father and mother who adopted me at 10 months of age.

I am the newborn girl lying in a cramped crib in Southern China.

I am one of millions of baby girls left in orphanages staring their infancy away at a ceiling and strange women speaking in strange gibberish.

I am one of the lucky ones who found a forever family.

I am the little Chinese girl who would get made fun of in school because I don’t have the same skin color as my mother and my eyes are almonds.

I am the girl who would be the lead in elementary plays, back when it was cute to dress up as a giant, singing block of cheese or a left fielder that was left behind.

I am the girl who ended up in a divorced house with a father who cared about his games than he was with a little girl who just wanted to throw the football.

I am the girl that prevailed despite being abandoned by her “forever” father.

I am the little girl who used to cry herself to sleep in third grade because she was scared of not being accepted.

But now all that’s changed

I am the woman who realized that being scared and having fears are two completely different things.

I am the woman who knows that if we want to squash our fears, we can’t be scared of tripping over the ball, falling on our faces and scoring on ourselves at the first game because one day we’re going to get the perfect opening and sprint the ball down field to shoot into the top left corner, score the goal and win this game we call life.

We can’t be scared to go to places even our darkest nightmares avoid at all costs.

We will only kill our fears if we jump head first into what terrorizes us most.

I am the sixth grade girl who jumped head first into band because her best friend’s sister told me it was fun.

I am just a band geek that will forever be changed by music.

I am yet another freshman at her first marching band camp, struggling to comprehend how one can march and memorize music at the same time.

I am the senior who just finished her last high school marching season, with more of a band family than a bunch of band friends right by my side.

I am the senior who decided it would be a brilliant idea to take on four AP classes her last year.

I am going to regret that later (probably around April).

I am the girl who will graduate and start a new chapter of my life at the age of seventeen.

I am going to make something of myself.

Take that dad.

I’m racing down field to go score the winning goal.