"They can't tell me who to be
Cause I'm not what they see
Yeah, the world is still sleeping
While I keep on dreaming for me
And their words are just whispers and lies
That I'll never believe"

- I'm Still Here, John Rzenik

I am going to start this post with a little bit of biographical information:

My full name is Marissa Merve Temel-Garcia

My mom is a Muslim woman.

My mom raised us (my brother and I) in Muslim prayer and behaviors. It was never a very strict role in our lives though, my mom used common sense, morality, and a love for humanity as our belief system.

However, in this post 9/11 world, the moment you mention being Muslim, having Muslim parents, being from the Middle East, everyone either keeps their mouth shut, asks questions, or excludes you from the island and asks why you bothered to show up.

More on that later.

My personality is another thing entirely.

If you knew me, you would see this in full swing every. single. day.

I curse a lot (think of a sailor); I am loud; I am bohemian in nature; I am a hippie.

I find myself unable to hold back the quick wit that I devise, and sometimes I am overly proud. I work hard, I live hard. I get excited and sometimes it feels like at that moment it is just me and that moment that makes me so vivacious that any held back syllable is like a loss of momentum to that climax moment of my overt joy.

That kind of joy was so often stolen from me. A counselor at one point said that I was “rediscovering my emotions" and that everything I felt was something I hadn't felt in such a long time. I took it upon myself to follow the words of author John Green's The Fault in Our Stars

“I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasures…".

To this:

“I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasures of life."

The downside to all of this (and the point of this article) is that at the end of the day, all of the beauty that you are, all of your sunshine, and all of that attitude won't mean anything. I say this with the upmost love in my heart.

I gave a fellow girl in one of my classes the literal jacket off my back and I was left with nothing but a tank top, and that same day she would not look me in the eye or say anything. "Why?" You ask? “She's not Christian." Ouch.

This was in seventh or eighth grade (which of course is bullying high tide) and I found myself to feel a little less and less Muslim (and religious) and a little more and more spiteful.

Nothing I ever did was enough.

Flash forward to now, the ole' college days.

You would think that the maturation time from that middle school pettiness and close-minded-ness would have come to the end by the time you were about to go out to the real world. Cliques that plagued middle and high school would end; because why would you keep people out in a place where you were meant to branch out.

You would think that peace and love would conquer, differences would be appreciated, and the tides would change.

I guess that is my hippie nature calling. I got that from my mom.

A big point for writing was that I found out that people had problems with my writing for the Odyssey through my university. Not because I was not a good writer or a lack of professional work ethic, but for the fact that I had written independently before and had "no reason to be there".

Save for the fact that a professor put me in to shake up the place, to add a new and different spice to the chef's spice rack so to speak. (To be truthful, I only said that I would think about it and she had sent off my email to my lovely editors and dun-dun-dun here I am). In my best Shrek voice, "I THANK YOU".

Of course, like it always has, my religion and my bold personality do not fit. I am a deviant in their eyes. Muslim, bold, secure (in my personality, I guess), rebellious, loud, ambitious, different.

This revelation, as you can expect, upset me greatly. I went home to see the guy I was seeing and cried the whole way there.

I've done nothing to make them not like me, I thought. I always say hi, how are you. (SHE WAS MY BEST FRIEND WHEN SHE WANTED MY NOTES AND PROJECTS.)

This was not the first time.

A time before this, in short, I ran out of a classroom crying. Why?

I was/am at a Christian university and I am also in a Middle Eastern History class. A few people had said some terrible things about the Muslim religion and its people (I understand from Sociology that a greater social distance between people groups breeds prejudice, but I was still mad). All these things were said before I had mentioned who I was, who my mother was, and where she was from.

"The Middle East breeds terrorists and bullies. I don't know why they have to be so evil."

I got so angry I ran out of class with the bell in tears. I spoke out and gave them the biggest eye-opener in the history of the world.

It's funny how when you mention something about you that people are prejudiced for they shut their gab fast.

Especially when you metaphorically shove their boot in it.

I guess the point of all this is to show that no matter who you are or how you act, not everyone will be happy. Someone will be unhappy and try to tear down your kingdom walls, even if you just finished renovating.

Someone will always try to steal your thunder, your sunshine, your spark, and your greatest simple pleasures.

Instead, vent about it. Here I write, to my boyfriend I talk, to the "haters"... well, I gotta admit, I did smile a little extra and was a little petty.

If it is your personality that someone has the biggest problem with, it is your personality that you should exert a little bit more.

Because you're freaking perfect.

Take some advice from me,

I've known enough of hate to sate the souls of demons.

But enough of love and grace to give them the jacket off my back.

Thanks for reading.