Jigsaw Puzzle

I'm Georgia, I'm 16 years and 11 months old. 

Georgetta was the name given to me at birth, but I tried quite a few names out before I was just Georgia. I was Isabel in 4th and 5th grade. Harry Potter was my imaginary friend. I was Abby Duck in 6th grade, because I liked the name Abby and I wasn't allowed to put my name on my Facebook page. In middle school and some of freshman year,  I went by Georjedi. It was a nickname my father had given me when I was younger and I just didn't feel like I was really a Georgetta. Sophomore year and part of this year was defiantly... different.  During the summer, I was a mix between Beyoncé and Gacole (ja-cole)  (Yes, I know. Just last summer!) However, during the school year, I was mostly Gacole, feeling too mature for my other names. 

Each name has its own story. I was trying to put myself in different puzzles. maybe I was more country than city, maybe I liked music more than this or that. I didn't see how you could have one passion, and that's all you are. The truth is, that's not how it is. I spread myself in too many puzzles, when I was the only puzzle I needed to focus on. I tried being a part of this puzzle, that puzzle, and always ending up feeling like I was not a piece of that picture. I started to feel like I didn't belong in any picture. It wasn't until recently that I realized that pieces of me weren't something else, but that everything else were pieces of me! 

I was taught that nothing would change until I do, and so that's what I did. I reconstructed myself over and over and over, giving myself different names and clothing styles and music tastes. I was so focused on the visible change that I wasn't paying attention to the important change, the one that happens in your heart. I wanted to be a little bit of everything, so that there was no way people couldn't like me. I also felt like if I wasn't really ME, that then it wouldn't hurt so bad if people didn't like who I was, because it wasn't really me. You know what I'm saying?

 I had a friend this summer who really opened my eyes though. I was running around being someone else so much, that I had lost touch with who I really was. Heck, I didn't even know who I really was. They want to work for a company that builds NASA's space shuttles and things. They told me that they want to see their name in the stars someday, but they are afraid of failure, so they don't tell people. I never would have guessed that they were anything but 100% confident in themselves. 

Its hard to really embrace who we are. I have another friend who was scared of admitting that they liked horses because they were afraid it seemed dorky and cliché.  One day they stopped denying it and just accepted it. They said it felt good to just let it out. It was a simple statement. Yet, it had such a huge impact on their lives. Your passion shouldn't be a secret that you're scared of sharing.

Yes, I am a teenager, and I am still trying to find myself, but its a lot easier to do that when you can at least be honest with yourself. Its hard for me to publicly proclaim that music is my passion, something I want to change others lives with. I'm scared that if people don't like my music, they wont like me. 

We are all awkward, soul searching, pieces of a puzzle. We are  a puzzle. We are made of of thousands of different things, created differently, one piece at a time. I used to see 18 at instantly being adult. Like, the day comes and the rock drops and all of a sudden you are a house owning, bill paying, on-your-own adult with a full time job and the world to take care of. Little did I know that it was one day at a time. You don't just suddenly become anything. its a process, just like building a puzzle. Just one piece at a time and the picture slowly starts to take shape. 

This puzzle is gloriously different though. It will continue to grow as you do. that puzzle will never be finished. it will have dark pictures and glorious colors, triumph and struggle, and all of life's twists and turns. I'm not sure how you build puzzles, but I build mine from a corner up. Its time to be the corner stone of your own puzzle. Who are you when you're done being everyone else?