June 2022. Fresh off my last flight from the UAE, a month of missed classes behind me, and teachers who weren't buying a single word of my "I studied there" story.
everything had shifted. Grades mattered now. Choices had weight. ideas were probed. i had no choice but to put the rest behind me.
I HAD TO START MY LIFE OVER IN AN ECOSYSTEM THAT WAS OVER HALFWAY THROUGH ITS LIFESPAN. EVERYTHING, FROM SCRATCH. LEARNING, EXPLORING, OBSERVING.
EVERYBODY TELLS YOU THIS. THE WORLD WON'T PAUSE FOR YOU. THEY COULDN't get anymore judicious. It keeps moving, loudly, with everyone already over each others' lives. I walked into a world already thriving and had to find a way to survive without being stepped on.
Every word, every glance, every step was calculated. it was out of pure craving for companionship.
And still, I felt invisible.
Being the new kid meant pretending exclusion didn't sting. It meant watching people drift and calling it okay. The FOMO was relentless, a haunting hum following me everywhere.
So I decided to do something about it. i was going to carve my throne.
It started with the TEDx speech that cracked something open in me. Standing there, saying words that actually meant something, I realized I was done lying on my bedroom floor with Billie, mitski, olivia, and conan on repeat, mourning a version of life I wasn't sure I'd ever get back.
I needed to be seen. I needed to make a mark. my mark.
Then someone mentioned a competition at a local school. Bold and Beautiful, a personality contest. I didn't think twice.
I wore the only dress that made me feel justifiably pretty. Walked across a stage with my calves shivering, fifty pairs of eyes studying me like I was an exhibit. Fashion clearly wasn't my forte. But when the introduction round came, I spoke and didn't stop until the bell rang mid-sentence.
i seriously didn't know what i was doing.
The Q&A was something else. Asked about books I'd read, I casually dropped Colleen Hoover's name and threw in "romcoms" like I was a devoted fan. I'd barely figured out what romcoms meant. I'd just absorbed the word floating around school hallways. with a much (hopefully) deceiving look on my face, i was internally laughing at myself. ah the situations i get myself into.
I knew I hadn't made it through. Expecting otherwise would've been embarrassing.
But my English teacher found me afterward, not with disappointment, but with something i seldom witnessed: genuine appreciation. The judges had noticed the way I spoke.
One thing led to another, and somehow I was standing before nearly a thousand students at our annual sports day, microphone in hand.
The days leading up to it are a blur. I remember skipping lectures to rehearse. I remember the backstage chaos. But what stays with me, sharp and vivid, is those last few minutes, the vote of thanks, when my teacher whispered, "The stage is all yours." all eyes on me alone, it felt like i'd just conquered the world.
That feeling was the throne I'd been carving.
It didn't stop there. Our school's own personality contest came around. I showed up in an outfit put together the night before, hairstyle still undecided, with nothing but the verses I wrote during my lowest moments as my talent piece.
The auditorium was packed so tightly you could barely lift your arms. And I was on that stage. That was enough. that was me carving my throne.
I've never been a runner. Genuinely, not even if you beg me. a marathon came up, i had no one to 'go with'. I laced up and showed up anyway. I made friends I wouldn't have met otherwise. I laughed more than I expected. Running turned out to be fun, something I'd never have discovered if I'd stayed home. i could say it now. i completed a marathon. that was me carving my throne.
What did I have to lose?
That's the thing nobody talks about: the cost of not showing up.
Every time you talk yourself out of something, too nervous, too underprepared, too afraid of looking foolish, too afraid of seeming like too much, You're skipping a version of yourself that could've existed.
Fail. Fall flat. Mess up spectacularly. Let the worst happen.
Then get up and do it again, until life decides it's your turn.
Your throne isn't yours if it was handed to you. It's yours because you almost didn't build it, but then you did anyway.