In Kindergarten, I was the bossiest, most self-assured toddler. I had three boyfriends and surpassed asking their permissions to be their girlfriend, I just told them how it was going to be. By second grade, I was constantly volunteering to watch over the classrooms or help other students understand the material. Somewhere between second grade and now, however, all that confidence and self-assurance made its way deep into a black hole of nothingness.

In fourth grade, when I got my first C, some part of me decided I failed and was never going to be as smart as I was before; I stopped volunteering. In the fifth grade, I was the first of all my class to hit puberty. I was wearing bras and buying pads at CVS. Wanting to fit in with everybody else, I hid myself under layers of sweatshirts and messy ponytails. By middle school, I was passing all my classes with minimal effort and felt no need to try, fearing standing out.

I have always been outgoing, loud, and easy-going. Traits others may perceive as confident. Little did anyone know the hours, minutes, and seconds I put into overthinking nearly everything I did. Turning out every possible and impossible outcome of each and every decision I’ve made. Daydreaming of a life where I went after the things that scared me or pushed past my failures.

Somewhere between the second grade and the end of high school, I lost all the confidence and self-assurance I had as a little girl.

At times, I felt invisible. Not in the “no one knows I exist” kind of way, but in the “everyone has someone else" kind of way. All my friends were in relationships, or talking to someone, going to parties, going to the movies, and going on dates on the weekends. I was going to swim meets and going to my grandma's house for Sunday lunch. I retreated into my family. Yes, I went out, I had friends, I knew almost everyone, but I never took the initiative to make things happen for myself. I was comfortable where I was and I lost the confidence I needed to put myself out there again.

Halfway into my senior year of high school, after being deferred from nearly every school I applied to, after beating myself up for not trying harder, I decided to make a change. I started wearing a little bit of make up to school every once in a while. It wasn’t really my thing, but people noticed. I started taking time to make my hair look nice and not just put it up in a bun. It was noticed. I started dressing better when I went out. People noticed. I changed stupid things about myself and people notice and I started to build up my confidence again. Somewhere along the same time period, I started caring more about my grades. Maybe it was a little too late, but better late than never, right? I was never a straight A student. I got B’s, I got C’s. I was just as smart as the other kids in my classes, but I was nowhere near as driven as them, grade-wise. I couldn’t be. I didn't have enough time to go to practice, study, and see my friends.

I’m not going to lie, I was scared to go to college. I was intimidated by my future classmates. Some had already started their own companies, others were expert programmers. Everyone, it seemed, already had direction, and here I was, sitting behind my computer screen having a hard time choosing what to watching next of my 72-hour Netflix binge.

I decided to take some sort of control of my future academic and professional career and I got an internship. I went into the internship confident that I had the skills to make an impression, but nervous that I wouldn’t be enough. At the end of my four weeks, I had praises from everyone I had worked with, a strong letter of recommendation, and an offer to return.

I began finding my confidence in places I never imagined I would stand out.

When I got to college, I decided I was going to be the person I knew I always was. Self-assured, confident, and driven. I had built myself up to, what at least from the outside it seemed, the self-assured, confident person I used to be. Of course I still had my insecurities, my worries, my doubts. But I pushed through. I thought, if I can fake it, I can make it. Everything was going according to plan until guys came into the picture. I had had my fair share of hookups, but I had never let myself get attached. I knew I fell quickly and easily and I had planned to avoid getting hurt at any cost. But after four years of being single, “protecting” myself from rejection, I realized I was missing out on great opportunities out of fear. It wasn’t worth it. I began putting myself out there. Making moves. I didn’t throw myself at any man that looked my way, but I began to flirt more and to be a little more open minded to different guys.

I had finally found myself in the situation I hated most. A situation that made my feel vulnerable, insecure, and panicked, and there was nothing I could do but hope for the best. I had begun the dreadful “talking” stage to a guy who gave me butterflies and made me feel nervous and excited. I had all these feelings running through my body, all at the same time. I had missed this feeling. Did I know where this was going to go? Nope. The only thing I knew was that I was scared but I was having the time of my life. And that’s when I figured out that I would be ok, no matter what the outcome was.

It didn’t last too long, but it didn’t matter I had become a bigger person and gotten back some of my confidence; I also still had three and a half years of college left to find someone else. That’s when I realized that the only way to build myself up and let myself grow, was to accept rejection in all of its ways, academically/professionally, personally, and most important emotionally - because without risking rejection we limit our path to finding happiness.