This is a prompt that most of us detest. To sum ourselves up in a marketable, digestible, and enticing few sentences feels futile. Almost dismissive of our expansiveness. Yet, we find ourselves answering it when we meet new people, apply for jobs, or go on first dates, carefully curating it for whoever is sitting in front of us. We learn to answer the real question that is quietly whispered to our subconscious – “tell me why I should invest in you.”
I’ll try my best to make you want to stay but there’s no pressure. You can quietly exit out of this page and never think twice about me. I wouldn’t be offended. However, if this existential stalling has you interested in who I might be, stay for awhile. Read my inner thoughts, look at my art, and engage in the human experience with me without feeling the need to tell me about yourself. No strings, no rewritten story of your life, no second-guessing how to tell the bad with a good ending. All are welcome here.
As long as you believe in human rights for ALL. Not just the ones you deem worthy.
Okay, so let me answer the prompt. My name is Cheyenne. I’m currently 27 years old (I wonder at what age I start saying “years young” and wink like its an inside joke everyone knows about). I have a Bachelors in Psychology from Macaulay Honors College at Queens College and a Masters in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. I crochet any time my hands and eyes are free from my part-time job at Old Navy and I’m attempting to get back my ferocious love of reading. I write to keep the shadows of my mind from consuming me entirely and for the past three years, I’ve been fighting a health battle that I hide very well. Hence needing a place to put everything I’m carrying down for awhile.
I started this blog when my condition became critical enough to be catheterized during a consultation. Initially, I thought I was walking into a problem solving doctors visit and expected to walk out of there with a plan, follow-ups, and my dignity. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. In that moment, my life changed drastically and I wondered if I’d ever feel like myself again.
Thousands of dollars in medical bills, hundreds of therapy appointments, and countless tears later, I realized I didn’t know what the “real me” even felt like. The person I was prior to this situation was an incredible human, achieving incredible things, and making others proud…happy. But inside, she never felt like her skin fit and her mind was far from paradise. It’s interesting how the worse times in our lives can wake us up from a slumber we didn’t know we were in the middle of.
Do you see why I said that prompt is ridiculous? How in the world am I meant to put myself in an easy to understand paragraph or statement when it took me rock bottom to finally find myself. To put all the pieces together and follow the string that ties every experience, person, and lesson together until I’m presented with a bow. Ta-da. The perpetually unfinished product of Cheyenne in nice packaging.
If I sound like someone you want to invest in, dive in. I’m an open book (or I guess I should say “blog”). Not every piece is going to be great. Some are going to sound unfinished. And please, don’t hold it against me when I inevitably rewrite myself when something new comes along and I realize I didn’t have it quite right to begin with. I’m learning as I go and I’m finding pieces of myself every day. Here’s to the never ending and fulfilling feeling of becoming and unbecoming until all that’s left is what feels right. Until our skin fits just right and our minds are home.
cmdreamer 