My New York Times Personal Narrative Contest Entry

Hello Everyone! Oh my, how I've missed y'all. It's been too long!

This week, I wanted to share my entry for the NYT Personal Narrative contest this year. It's one of my favorite pieces I've written so I hope you enjoy it!:

Post-It Note

My therapist made me write a motivational note on a Post-It. She instructed me to find a message that would remind me to be happy, even when I don’t want to be. I’ve never felt more cliche in my entire life.

My resentment of therapy started at age 8. My first therapist constantly told me my feelings were invalid; “you’re just going through hormonal changes, you’ll be fine.” She was wrong, and I ended therapy. Quarantine brought back the suicidal and “negative thoughts and actions”, as my mom calls it. So back to therapy I went.

My stubbornness caused problems early on. I’ve never been a fan of people telling me how to feel, nor how to make me feel differently. I like doing things by myself, and only by myself. Help was never needed.

At first, my doctor tried to pry me open like a wooden trunk and pick out the Xs and Os of my brain. It didn’t work. “I’m not stupid,” I told myself, “this is pointless.” But after May 21st, I changed my mind.

May 21st was the scariest day of my life. May 21st was the day I found the quote for my Post-It. “God let you live another day. Make the most out of it.”

The church always taught me to have hope, and hope was impossible for me to feel anymore. I was done believing in something I could not see. I was overwhelmed with feelings of disappointment and sorrow. I did not want to believe, because if I did, I was giving my heart and soul to something, and I was not capable of doing that.

But after that night, I went to church. I wrote my post-it note in the pew I always sat in, on a hymnal I always sang from.

As I sat there alone, staring at the wooden altar and gold-plated wall, I remembered why I believe in God. How my sister and I always bonded over our belief in something greater than ourselves. How my life, my beliefs, my family, my morals, all grew in this very pew.

“God let you live another day. Make the most out of it,” is something my grandmother always tells me. On the morning of May 22nd, I couldn’t stop hearing her voice. I couldn’t stop thinking about God. How this was supposed to happen; how this was a lesson. A gift to me, from him.

I wrote my Post-It that night. I stuck it on my bathroom mirror. And it has not fallen off since.