everythingemily

 I shifted my gaze from the ground in a startled haze. A couple of feet in front of me stood a white-tailed deer, plucking the vibrant red berries off of a holly bush. I moved towards it; the deer quickly scampered away as the crumpled crimson leaves crunched beneath my feet. I soon arrived at my favorite place: a small dirt clearing with the only birch tree in the entire forest on the edge. 

          I sat in the middle of the vast autumnal array of bark and burgundy, observing the birch tree I felt so connected to. This one tree was different. From a distance, it looked like every other tree in the forest. But up close, it was special. I looked up to this birch tree, both figuratively and literally. I understood this tree. It blended in from a distance, but it didn’t fit in. It was special, but no one saw or noticed this. I know this feeling all too well.

          While understanding this tree, I also, in a strange way, envied it. While suffering from blending it, it simultaneously had the privilege of standing out. I wasn’t so lucky. 

           I’ve never felt special. But of course, all these prompts are asking “What makes you special?” What a loaded question—how do I even answer that? The question asked, of all things, is the one I have wrestled with my entire life. And now, my future is contingent on my ability to demonstrate the answer to a question that I don't know the answer to. What an overwhelming task. Especially for a kid like me. Growing up in Scituate, I have never truly felt perceived as special: a maple tree deep in a forest of other maples. My interior was different, but my bark looked like the others, so I was never noticed.

          And now, once again, I sit in a forest, a metaphorical one. Each essay you read is a tree, this one is just another tree in the forest of essays. And just like my entire life, I am fearful of being perceived as the same as every other tree.

          I am special, the one different tree in the forest, but how can I convince someone I have never met of this in 650 words? The answer is that I won’t. Instead I’ll share my greatest strength.

           For my entire life my greatest gift has been my ability to talk. I can talk to anyone. I can comfort my friends on the streets during the homeless outreach project I lead after school. I can support the nervous freshman who is struggling in his transition to high school. I can make friends with the seventy year old man who sits next to me on an airplane; as well as lend an ear as he rants about the political unrest of our country and while he follows up with his opinions on the Boston Celtics. I can give an eight minute speech in front of the entire freshman class, their families, half of the senior class, and the entire faculty and staff during a convocation ceremony. I can spend thirty minutes talking to the woman who works the desk at my local gym instead of working out—and then I can tell my mom why I was at the gym for two and a half hours. Heck, I can even convince my English teacher to give me two extra days to finish my essay. 

           All of these things, and yet, I still struggle when asked what makes me special. Maybe it never was about seeing me from the edge of the forest. Because now I realize when you take a step back, one ordinary looking maple tree can be seen rising above all of the others on the horizon. It grew each time I used my voice. When I couldn’t be seen, I found a way to be heard.