individuality.

                           For years and years, I've hidden beneath a façade of cellphones, trends, Facebook likes, insecurities and popularity concerns. For too long, my happiness has been dependent on my social calendar for the weekend, someone else's opinion of me or what party I wasn't invited to. I've put less-than-perfect friends on pedestals just to let them drop me. I've invested all of my energy into being liked. 

                                                     I'm overjoyed to announce that I've given up this burden. Unfortunately, so many people still carry the weight of trying to fit the average mold without even realizing it. The urge to please everyone has been installed in our systems for so long that we don't feel the space it takes up, like a rock weighing us down. 

What if we took half an hour that we would have spent updating our profile picture to do something that we'll be proud of? What if, instead of asking what other people think, we ask what we think of ourselves?

In the recent months, I've shed a lot of things that I was pretending to be. I've still got a ways to go, but the difference is already astounding. Maybe it's not cool to be the girl who isn't in love with her phone; who reads like crazy and listens to the hit radio once in a blue moon. Maybe I'll never be 'popular'. 

                                   But you know what? I have a lot of other things to be proud of. 

I am a photographer, a daughter, a friend, an artist, a writer, a sister, an athlete and an individual. 
If being happier while taking pictures than hopping from party to party sets me apart from the rest, that's fantastic, because I need to be my own person.

 I'm excited for the future and the places I'll go and the people I'll meet. I find comfort and pleasure in the fact that I'm going to discover so many cities and hug so many new friends. There are other people in this world that aspire and dream as I do. I'm happy to be exactly who I truly am, because the future is bright, my friends.