By: Leah C. 7A

If you ran up to me on an ordinary day and yelled, “LEAH, WHO ARE YOU?!” I would most likely: a) tell you to be quiet, and b) have to stop and think. I know myself well---I care way too much about grammar, I am loud, and also really dramatic. I take pleasure in skiing, acting, and steaming mugs of tea. I am sensitive and maybe a little insecure. I am nostalgic and pretentious. But once we plow through my surface, the descriptions and observations, you find my core. Even I don’t know what it is—I’m only through maybe the first three layers. I know what I love and what I hate, my hobbies and dislikes. I know my pet peeves and things that make me smile (warm sweaters, my little sisters, chick-flicks, etc.). Sure, I can answer many trivia questions about myself, but I inevitably begin to question: do I know myself?

Well, the answer is no. I am like a gold mine, where I keep digging for the treasure and finding valuable bits and pieces of myself along the way. My whole life is one big dig for riches. If you got to know me, I think you would discover as lot, but you would never really know me, because i am so very good at disguising feelings. You might find that I love talking to people. You might discover that I love knowing things--about everything. You might find out that I would do anything to be able to marry fictional characters. Who knows? But what you will not find is my core. It won’t drape itself across a silver platter for you. It won’t lay itself at your feet. It won’t do anything, because it is encased in so many undiscovered layers that it can’t budge. You will have to wait patiently for me to peel it all away. I’m sorry in advance.

Who am I? I do not know. What am I? Well, I am a sculpture. I am gradually being whittled away, creating Leah. It is quite the tedious process. I am waiting to see what I wind up as. I don’t know if I will end up as a masterpiece or an abstract hunk of stone. Maybe I’ll have to be destroyed and then rebuilt. Maybe I’ll end up in a museum, or locked away in an old studio, collecting dust. I am a heap of marble with so many futures.

However, I am not entirely undiscovered. I have two younger sisters that I adore. I would do anything for my family and friends. I am adventurous and bold. I hate sappy things. I think I am a half-carved sculpture. I am pitifully pretentious. I am twelve and still a seven year old at heart. I love happy people and pretty sunsets. I hate cheese and know-it-alls. I love positive thinking, and yet I consider myself a “realist.” I have spent twelve years discovering who I am, and only to peel away 3 layers (3 and a half on a good day).

So to reiterate (because I am a repetitive person) whoever asks me who I am will have to be patient, because I have spent years and years looking for who I am, only to spend years more. I am adjectives, likes and dislikes, thoughts and sentences, family and friends.I am a million things. I am one thing. I am one person. I am Leah M. C. born twelve years ago on the twelfth of September, and I am a work in progress.