“egos are like hairdos

they’re different every day

depending on how we slept the night before

depending on the demons that are at our door”

-ani difranco

“Oh you’re going to Florida over break? I’m going to Greece…”

I do not tell the people at my school that I have a tumblr because I fear they will find it and mock. I try not to use tumblr to vent my feelings because we are supposed to have positive, personal outlets for that— journals and mentors and parents— but tonight I just want to expose me worries to a roomful of invisible strangers. Sometimes the internet is like the ocean, as small or infinite as you want it to be. As loud or as quiet, as tangible for infinite. Tonight I want to yell into the most infinite part of it for the sake of yelling, on the edge of the dock, all alone, screaming to a shell on the other side of the Pacific. 

I live in a place focused on appearance, yet one that does not put any great stake in the visual, performance or verbal art. It is a place, so subtly, geared toward making money. This is a high school! And yet Juniors are already talking about Harvard Law School and already planning for their Ferrari and mansion. It is financially biased enough for me, an extraordinarily lucky middle class girl, to start thinking of myself as lower class. I began to focus so much on what I didn’t have that I forgot how much I do. We live in a world of over consumption, a world of money. We live in a world that requires a lowest class because of the the nature of “healthy competition” and capitalism. It is suggested that the only way to bridge the gap that keeps Americans from living the American dream is “educational opportunity.” And yet, here I am, in the midst of educational opportunity, and I find there is not such thing as “complete integration.” I find that financial aid is kept hush hush. I find that the most influential girls say “Old Navy” under their breath and wear pearls and 200 dollar sweaters made to look like they were found on a thrift store rack.