Thinking about college and what I want to do with my life is a lot of stress. Sometimes I just want to go to a small college, double major in art and animation, and then move to Portland and have a my dream job at Laika Studios. I’d have a nice little apartment and a dog and just live life doing what I love. Too bad I can’t do that.
What I care most about in the world, though, is children. I care about making sure that children are safe and happy, and that all children have equal opportunities through equal education. I want kids to have schools that are safe and comfortable places. I care about there being up-to-date curricula and testing that are meant to help kids succeed. I care that schools are adequately funded so that kids can get a good education regardless of their family’s income. I care that schools are places where students are respected and respect each other. And most importantly, I care that students come out of schools well-educated and able to access all different things. I want the sky to be the limit.
Too often, though, public schools crumble because funding only goes to the schools in rich neighborhoods. Girls don’t feel safe or welcome in their own schools because of rampant sexism and sexual harassment. Kids experience constant institutionalized racism and the school to prison pipeline is going strong. All these things are so important to me to change and it seems like so much to do and I’m really just a kid. I know when I go into the world I’m going to be the girl that no one takes seriously, the black girl that is too angry about nothing, and the girl who’s always trying to make something out of nothing. And all of that seems really scary.
It seems scary for there to be so much to fix in the world and at times it seems like there’s no chance of ever just being happy. Because there are always going to be people who are treated unjustly and not given the same respect, rights, and opportunities as their more privileged peers. And as long as that’s happening, it seems so irresponsible of me to run off to Laika.
This blog post is kind of all over the place because I’m not sure what my point really is. How can you spend your life helping other people but also making sure that you can do the things that make you happy? I never feel more alive than when I’m talking about or working on injustice in schools or working with kids and yet I’m also not too great at handling the stress that comes with that either. Once could even argue that I don’t really have the right to be stressed because I’m not the one in the worst position. I disagree with that personally. Someone else always has it worse than you but that doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to feel what you feel. It’d be a job that’s endlessly frustrating but also so important. But art makes me happy. So do I put my happiness on hold to follow my passion? Or do I ignore my passion in attempt to be happy?
Honestly those questions are dumb, though, because I can always do both.
