Personality is a tricky and confusing conundrum. It is so complex and you never know as to when or if it will change. Unfortunately, I was too young to understand that, and how much of an influence personality would be on my life, my actions, decisions, and much more. Most prominently, personality is flexible. It can bend into any shape or form, and can either have a negative or positive effect on a person’s life. A major alteration within my personality was when I transitioned from being vivacious and lively to being timid and introverted; however, I feel that this change was neither positive nor negative, and has a purpose for something I do not know yet.


Ever since I was born, I was the cheerful, enthusiastic girl everyone wanted to be friends with. I willingly took all of my best friends under my wing, had many memorable sleepovers, and continued to expand my circle as the years went by in elementary school. You could say I was part of the “mean popular” clique. With my girls, we were invincible, always making fun of that new girl that came in 4th grade. I even faked being her friend and scared her by saying that school is a jungle—you only make it here unless you’re popular and pretty. Yeah, I was that brutal. But still, everyone wanted to be included in my massive circle. Other than friendships, I was audacious and confident in my actions. I never cared for the consequences or even the mean words people said because I never heard them. It was my cockiness that stood out over my awareness and judgment of what people said—if they said anything at all. It’s a pretty good situation to be content with, right? Well, that is when all of it would change.


Fifth grade. I was ten years old when my transformation had sparked into action. You may be thinking: how can the most effervescent person change so quickly, so fast? My answer: the tables have turned. Instead of it being me dominating the less social kids in school, others had me cowering in their presence. Let me start off with the fact that I had been transferred to a different elementary school for fifth grade—something with my old school caused them to move many students to this other one nearby— so I knew little about who went there. Once I was dropped into this new environment, I decided that I should make new friends. What a mistake I made. These people were bitter. Mean. A better word for them would actually be bullies. They’d criticize my looks. They’d scrutinize every little feature about my face and body, such as my nose, lips, and even my sense of style. They’d even whisper behind hands and look straight at me as they did. And they knew I was looking back at them. Who were they to do that to me, I ask myself today. It wasn't something I asked myself then, though. I didn't do much about it. I believed that what those bullies said were true. I was living in life of insecurity. Is this what I did to those I bullied in my past years? Is karma actually catching up to me now? Maybe I deserved their criticism. But what I didn't deserve was how much they had changed my personality. Changed my life, basically. Because of my many insecurities, I wasn’t confident anymore. “Am I good enough?” I would ask myself all the time. I was fearful that if something I said would cause more criticism, so I kept my mouth shut most of the time and all thoughts and feelings to myself. It’s amazing just how only a handful of people can change my whole personality.


So today I’m still an awkward, gawky kid. The antithesis of who I was four years ago. It’s hard to speak out in class, always stumbling over my words. It’s hard to make new friends and start or carry on conversations. When people would tell me “You’ve changed!” I’d shrug. Everything about my personality is difficult to work with. Now don’t get me wrong; being shy has its perks. Staying quiet allows me to process information about my surroundings and be more observant to come out with a positive solution in difficult situations. I see everything now, almost better than I used to be as a more outgoing person. So, where I am today, personality-wise, I am quite neutral about the change. For some unknown reason, God made me go through all the bullying and the transformation to make me who I am today and will be from now on. I actually have uncovered one reason why: my personality attracted many of the friends I have now. I am glad for the new friends that came into my life and accepted my personality, and the old friends that accepted the change. Seeing us all come together is worth going through what I did four years ago.