Growing up, I thought that people were born with their eyes closed because that’s how they never looked at me.

I never fit the boxes and could never check any other. I was always weaving between the layers and still do today.

I was always that weed growing between the concrete. Many trampled on it, and only a few saw its magic, and I did not, and still do not always see its magic either.

I always waited to see which part of me would belong with them and which would least offend and blend between the lines.

I was like a chameleon of traits, an impostor of my own fate, always asking for directions and letting people move me on a chessboard—waiting for checkmate.

But I am learning now—life might be a game of chess, but I do not always have to wait for people to move first. I do not have to always change colors or each square. I am learning and struggling to learn that the lines are alright too.

I do not need to check all the boxes; I do not need to fit inside a box that others created, as I have done all my life to be approved of and to feel happy. I wish I knew I never had to be the expert of fitting into boxes.

I am the oil that sits on top of water, refusing to blend. I do not need to disperse like oil in Mayonnaise because I am whisked vigorously into someone I do not know.

I do not need to be an emulsion.

I see both worlds so clearly now, and I dance and fall between. I am learning I belong in the spaces between, checking all the boxes that may apply—because I am not meant to be in a single box.

I am human. A human who will always dance between.

And now, I need not be seen as the world suggests, but through the eyes of my heart and soul, reawakening and finding their own way.

Checking all of the boxes that may apply.

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