Since I was 10 years old, I have been dead set on being a journalist. I wrote diary entries about what I saw on the playground and described the cliques forming before my eyes: the girly girls, the tomboys, the fastest runners of our class. They all had designated spaces, and we knew where to find them. I was brutally honest about these groups and what they gossiped about. If they spoke about someone I knew, I wrote it down. If the girls were doing flips on the monkey bars, I described their form.

Sugarcoating wasn’t in my vocabulary. Facts were facts, and I was allowed to write them because they happened.
As I grew up, I kept writing what I saw, though people started to read what I wrote in the school newspaper. At 17, I realized that I couldn’t tell the truth about what I saw if it was negative. My fear settled in, and I stopped requesting ideas that allowed me to investigate the truth. I could not name-drop when I thought it was important. I had to water down everything I wrote, unless it was an opinion, in which case it was framed as non-factual.

So I decided to try column writing. Cool! My opinion and no more sugar coating, so I thought. I saw my friends’ opinions being denied publication because it was not socially acceptable.

It was never said to my face that I could not write something, but the denial was disguised as copy-editing. The story did not have to be about the school. It could be about the social issues that teenagers face that no one talks about openly. If we put something out into the world that did not sit well with the paper’s name stamped on it, liability was in our future. That goes for every paper.

My true desire to tell the truth was burning in the pit of my stomach. The longer I stayed quiet, the worse I felt. The opinions that could get me cancelled were tearing me open because I was invisible to the people who mattered. I was terrified to express how I felt to the public because the judgment aspect solidified in my brain. I spent a whole year silencing myself, and it was just hurting me more than the potential hate I could have gotten.

One day, I started writing again on my own. I observed and I wrote what I saw. I had forgotten what I loved about writing: truth. I learned that the truth is not subjective, and the desire to tell it was still a passion. I loved opinion writing and news writing. My love to tell honest opinions and the truth about the world without restrictions was in my bones, and I was still born to write. It may just not be for another publication.

At 18 years old, I decided that I was going to have my own publication and website where I could publish daily stories that range from investigative journalism to reviews of movies that did not have to fit the image of my school.

This experience in a high school newspaper has furthered my love to show what is hidden and to fight for what I think is important. I encourage anyone who reads this to fight for that story and discover that truth. Don’t let someone deny you the right to talk about diverse opinions or topics that people may not like. Find your voice and let go.