I am Annika

October 9, 2012

Audre Lorde once stated that if you define yourself for yourself then you leave no room for other people’s interpretation of you. It’s important for me to define myself because most of my life I’ve felt misunderstood. My mom frequently reminds me of a number of things about my childhood: how pretty I was, how diplomatic I’ve always been and how everyone thought there was something wrong with me because no one could understand a word I said for the first five years of my life. I was pretty because of my skin tone and the texture of my hair. I was diplomatic because from the time my mom could remember, I made sure everyone had equal amounts of kool-aid, chips, or whatever other snacks were distributed. I was misunderstood because my words ran together and my sister spoke so clearly and so much, that I paled in comparison.

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