Just keep going by Melanie

Just keep going by Melanie - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

If I could give my past self a piece of advice, it would be this: Stop waiting for things to happen to you, start acting now. I’ve always be an introverted, self-conscious girl since I could remember, but this powerful reminder has carried me through most of my adulthood. I’ve often reflected how much time I spent avoiding people and being quiet throughout my school years, especially since my family was constantly moving. I was always the new kid every year, and this led to me being bullied because I had no friends of my own. Instead of speaking up and talking to someone about my problems, I internalized my pain and hoped, prayed even, for things to get better on their own. I wanted anyone to step in and give me some hope that things would get better, but that never happened. The change never came until I had grown the courage overtime to finally stand up for myself.

Throughout middle and high school, I often felt like I was invisible. Looking back, it wasn’t hard to see why, I was not really getting much attention at home either since I lived with 3 of my other cousins. My aunt never bothered to check in on me unless I was not doing well in a certain class. This left me isolated, especially since I was an immigrant who barely spoke English. The targeting wasn’t always physical; it started slow and progressively got worse with people whispering and pointing at me. It was the backhanded comments or jokes that made me question my appearance. For a long like I just ignored it thinking it would go away, but it didn’t. I tried to tell myself that if I try to be someone more extroverted, more talkative that maybe they would like me more or at least leave me alone. I always waited for an opportunity during lunch or in class to say something funny or interesting enough for them to befriend me, but that day never arrived.

What I have learned since that day is that fear is your biggest enemy. Being afraid is normal, yes, but being paralyzed by it is not. Fear continues to grow and grow and eat at you until you don’t have a voice left. The more I waited, the less I felt capable of standing up for myself and that meant letting the girls who bullied me at school win. The only way out of that fear was through, meaning I had to make a choice: keep living in fear or speak up despite that fear. I wish I could have gone back to that day to tell my younger self that you don’t need to wait to stop being scared, you just need to act now.

Luckily, I’m at a point in my life where words do not affect me as much anymore. Through extensive therapy I learned that we can’t control the circumstances of our situation, but we can control how we react to them. When I finally spoke up to my high school French teacher one day during lunch, I immediately felt like a weight was lifted off my back. In that moment I hadn’t even realized how much of an emotional toll it had taken on my mental health. Mrs. S was the only person in that school who seemed to empathize and even relate to what I was going through and helped me in more ways than I could ever imagine. While the situation didn’t immediately disappear, something inside me that sophomore year changed. I felt different, bolder. I stopped feeling so scared about what people thought of me and started learning more about myself. I participated more in after school clubs, track events, and even painted a mural with the art students.

So, to my past self, I would tell her that while things might seem hopeless now, don’t wait. I know how you feel, but things do turn out for the better in the end. You will make so many friends after high school. Some will come and go, but you’ll be a lot more confident in yourself. You are enough just as you are, just focus on your healing and your education because those are the things that will continue to propel you forward. Life is not always going to be easy, but to get there you’ll have to keep moving forward.