Creativity is intelligence having fun
— Albert Einstein
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
A writer, a student, a daughter. A vegan, an activist, a familiar face. I’ve struggled with labels and categories my whole life. Never knowing which group I could exactly fit into frustrated me. I grew up with my mom, sister, uncle, and grandparents in a tiny apartment on Vancouver Island, BC. Although I’ve always admired the Pacific Northwest and all of its wondrous beauties, I’ve always wondered if a different life meant more than a simple change of scenery.
Nature versus nurture is always the concept I’ve struggled with. The possibility that I would be a whole, completely new person with a different set of genes flusters me. With a different parent, would I still be the eccentric, creative, curious person I am today? Would I have preferred basketball to track and field, art over writing, cooking to baking? And what has a larger impact on me, my genes or the environment I grew up in?
I’ve always strived to understand everything around me, but when the thing I can’t understand is within me, I feel frustrated. I thought that visiting the country and relatives my mother grew up with would help, but it only made me realize how far away my world was compared to hers. Maybe meeting my biological father would help. Or maybe it would again be a reminder of a world so different from my own.
I know one thing for sure: feeling out of place motivates me like nothing else. When I first moved to a new country to pursue my education, I felt at unease. I was surrounded by people who grew up with money, who used so many abbreviations I often wondered what they got out of it, and people who clearly had never questioned their identity. These kind of observations about the culture and people around me is what helped me feel in place. Accepting that I was different than the people around me and taking it as an opportunity to learn was the fundamental ideal I held myself to.
So, whether you have made peace with who you are and where you come from, or you are still searching, just remember there is no rush; we are all still learning. Still learning right from wrong, still learning and relearning important life lessons and we are still changing and developing into the person we’ve always strived to be!
“{A blog is } An online diary, usually used by people who want to feel important, and think other people actually read their daily garbage”
-Urban Dictionary
Angela's Anagram