Being raised by a single, Latinx mom, Freedom wasn't a word I understood until a few months ago. Only having my mom around meant that she was my sun, earth, water, and oxygen. She was the only thing I knew, so I followed everything she said, which meant no going out, not having too much of an opinion, and nothing that goes against our beliefs.

Growing up, it wasn’t too bad. I didn't have to make any decisions. Clothes? Already picked out and bought. Food? Already picked out and separated per meal. Friends? None. My life was school, home, and homework. And that was all I knew until high school. So don't get me wrong, if you had asked back then, I would have told you I have hundreds of friends because I didn't know that friends meant you could to rely on them, no matter what. And that you truly connected and looked out for each other, but I guess that's part of growing up. Looking back, I definitely had one or two really good friends but because of my blind mentality, I didn't take them as seriously until now.

Even now, over halfway through college the people who I would call “friends” or a very small group of people who know that I would do anything for. But even with these friends, my heart, head, and life stay guarded because my mom will forever be in my head whispering “the only person you have is yourself.”

But as I grew up with people I could relate or connect to I grew afraid of socializing because I've always been a little too tall and a little too big for my age group. So that always made me feel conscious of what I thought, how I looked, and what I said. Unfortunately, I never grew out of it, but I have learned how to do with it.

All my life, I didn't realize I had an opinion, so that made me one of the best people to have as friends-- if you said jump, I would have already know how high. So as I went through life, met the love of my life, pick the college and started classes, I felt lost. I've never felt more lost in my life. I was given all these different choices, and no one was there to judge me. It was during the first month of classes that I realize I didn't know who I was. I've only ever known the choice is my mom made for me and now I was forced to make some myself.

To this day, I'm still unsure about who I am, or my favorite question “ who would I be and what would I like if I was alone on an island?” I think I would be able to mostly predict, but there are days I'm still not sure who I would be or what would I like.

As I'm getting closer to my Independence, I hope to be able to find who I am and if you're reading this and understand what I'm going through thank you. It's because I learned I'm not alone I'm able to say what I do and don't like, do you know who my friends are, and what I want my life to be the day or tomorrow. If I'm going to get through this, you will too, because if you're ever on an island alone, the only person that you can listen to is you.