In the Eyes of The Children

Put yourself in our shoes. The lifestyle that we grew up knowing is the epitome of what you grew to know as wrong. You were taught that gay people were wrong or confused. You had the image of the working man and the cleaning wife, engraved into your mind since birth. You would have never imagined that women would become the top and men would just fall. In today's world, all types of people are coming out saying that they were sexually assaulted by God knows who. Women have sparked a movement that is never going to stop. The world has started a movement that will make it better, you just need to have patience and wait. I get that your world is changing, but for the sake of your kids, change with it. We are different then you and you will never change that. No matter how hard you try to knock us down or break or spirits, it will never work. Because for us, our world is freedom and yours is jail. For us, it's normal to be part of the LGBTQ+ community and for you, it's not. We grew up needing attention and constantly relying on any form of technology. We don't know what it is to grow up without smartphones or television. What we know is that phones are "life" and social media friends define your social status. We didn't grow up playing outside every day or being able to cross the street by ourselves. We grew up in our homes because it was too dangerous to leave them. Girls in particular had almost no freedom because of the increase in child predators. When we hear you tell us stories of when you would go out with your friends or play on the streets, we can't fathom what that feels like. Because most of us have never actually been close enough to a person to feel what a real friend is. We imagine what real friends are and when we do find them, we don't let go, for they are our lifeline. We are fake, we lie and manipulate to feel cool and make people like us. We can't go out on the streets because we can get shot or killed, and the sad thing is by who. We can get killed by a random person, or we can get killed by a family member that may not believe in our way of life. We can get killed by a rogue policeman or even our own "friends", for the simplest of reasons. For, in today's world, everyone speaks but no one actually says that truth.

We grew up in a world where school and social media dominate familial interactions. We grew up in a disastrous and overbearing school system. For us, weekends don't entail having fun with family or friends, it's staying up late trying to finish the absurd amount of homework we get. Parents say that we have free time, but we never actually do because our minds are never simply empty. We spend winter breaks and summer breaks doing school packets and finishing school projects. We are never truly free from the confines that we are born with. And those confines are never really gone but, altered. We finish middle school, here comes high school. We finish high school, go ahead, attend college because you can't survive in this world without a college degree. You finish college, great, get a job. You retire, great, how are you going to pay for your bills. You found a way to pay for your bills, great, your dying. You found a way to pay for your hospital bills, great, now you're dead. Then you think back to everything that you did in your life, and you question if you ever, really did anything for yourself. We are programmed since Kindergarten to follow the rules, dress appropriately, and act like adults. So, you question why we go crazy the second we catch a glimpse of freedom. It's because we have never seen it. For us, freedom is like snow in Florida during the summertime. We work our butts off trying to please you, but no matter what there will always be a small something that is left imperfect.

Our life has always been set for us since birth. We were to grow up, go to school, go to college, get a high paying job, find a spouse, have kids, and die. We never expected to encounter so many problems along the way. We didn't expect to be scared of going to school. We didn't expect to hold ceremonies for kids our age that was killed in mass school shootings. We didn't expect to do monthly code reds and fire drills. We didn't expect to have the cruel world thrown upon us at the ages of 11 to 18. We didn't expect to have our friends commit suicide due to stress. We were never warned of any of this and that caused a major change in our attitudes. That caused us to become silently loud. Yes, we speak all the time, about everything, but when do speak of the truth. If you were to ask your child if they have ever felt like they were not good enough, do you think you'd get a no? I know that if I were ever asked that question, that would not be my answer.

Generation Z has a little special nickname, we are called "The Silent Generation". Now for most people, they will say it fits because we are always on our phones, but I say it has a deeper meaning. For me Gen. Z is anything but silent the only thing that can possibly be silent about us is that we keep everything in. We are a generation of movement, we are one of the most open-minded generations of all time. We accept people of all color, race, and sexual orientation. The one thing that we do badly is outwardly expressing our inner thoughts. Gen. Z is probably the most mentally, self-deprecating generation of all time. We think that emotions are flaws and no one wants to see someone with that. Yes, we do love to talk and post about all types of emotional things, but do you ever hear us talk about ourselves. We talk about gossip and we label each other because it is the only way we can talk about our emotions without actually saying anything. We lie and destroy ourselves because we don't want the world to know the broken person that lies beneath. Every person has their scars; inside and out, but you will never see us showing it. And when we finally break. What happens then? Does the world pay attention and try to fix it? Or do they simply label us as "depressed" and stuff us with medication. Do we get to be heard and understood or do we get but in a psychological ward? The answer is simple, we get ignored.

We spend our lives putting up a wall of false identity for the world to see. We lock our true selves up because we are too afraid of how the world will change its view of us. We make our selves dumb and fake, both mentally and physically, to the point where we forget who we really are. We don't use our intellect to live, we use our "social image". Although smarts are a more popular thing in schools it doesn't mean that we use them all the time. We may use them during class but the second we enter a social gathering we revert to the "blonde" mentality. For us life is not how many friends you have, but how many likes you get on Instagram. We don't care about our inner turmoil as long as the world sees us as "perfect". All we strive to be is someone that can be popular around anyone and please those around them.

I have come to the conclusion that there is a better way to live. A better way to be you, without all the lies and held back tears. The only way to be you is to find you. It is to stop worrying about others and start listening to yourself. It is to shove that little demon that sits on your shoulder, speaking lies, and revive the once glowing angel. It is to stop being what others want and start being the crazy, smart, rambunctious, kind, fat, skinny, tall, short, noisy, silent, black, white, freckled, gay, trans, you. It is to stop for a second and ask yourself, "Am I who I want to be?" and once you've done that you will have found yourself. You don't have to be like other people, you can simply be your own self. You don't need to fit into the status quo, you just need to be you. You can be a boy but still, love to paint your nails and hang out with girls. You can be a girl that loves playing sports but still loves a good shopping spree. You need to let the light back into your heart and release all that inner darkness. Because once you do, you will feel a billion times stronger. You will feel like you. No is going to judge you. No one is going to tell you that you were better before, and if they do, be you. Show them who you are and push them to stop being so scared themselves, because what they truly want, is to be like you. So, right now, I want you to stop reading and I want you to close your eyes. I want you to imagine your future and imagine the perfect person and once you've seen it. Be it, because that person that you just saw, is you. You just need to reach out and grab it. And be you.