Years passed since my sea was wild and I had no direction to my path.
I was just peddling with my feet in the wild, open waters not knowing how I would end up.
Waiting for a shark to separate my legs from my middle, or for a dolphin to save me.
All I know was that I had dreams and desires. Dreams and desires with no concrete plans to fullfill them.
I was struggling with my identity in the same way that Pinocchio, the wooden little puppet, wanted to be a real boy. Only it was the opposite that I wanted, for me.
I cannot count how many times I watched that Disney movie over and over again, as a little child.
Pinocchio gave me a message of hope. That one little sparkle that I needed to continue living.
Like the fairy changed Pinocchio into a real boy, every night 5 year old little me was hoping that there was a fairy who could change me into a little girl. A wooden girl was okay if it had to be. But preferably one of flesh and blood.
I saved all my calf’s teeth for the good little fairy with her shiny blonde hair and her glittering blue prom dress.
But my calf’s teeth kept accumulating under my pillow and times to believe in the little fairy faded away.
I did my communion, 12 year old greedy me did it more for the money than out of faith. I went to high school, where pubertal kids going through development started forming crowds. Where kids at an unthinking age picked up on differences in other kids. Where children of that age try to find your weak Achilles spot, to use it against you.
The first years I was that intellectual, nerdy, weirdo who we could ask to do all the work when it’s actually a groups work. I focussed as hard as I could on studying. On obtaining good grades. It was a wonderful distraction. It was the only thing that people admired in that effeminate weirdo who they couldn’t seem to figure out.
Slowly I started to develop social skills. Slowly I learned how to talk to other people without turning red like an apple.
I discovered that I had talents, a sense of dry humor that could make people fall of their chair. During the last years of high school something wonderful happened that I didn’t know I was capable of : people started to invite me to their birthday parties, people actually started to form friendships with me. I was no longer that ignored third wheel type. I discovered that my own behavior was the reason that I was ignored all these years. That it was not predestined. That my shyness made people uncomfortable and the more that I would let down the walls that I built around myself, the more people would acknowledge me as a valuable part of society and of their friend circle.
After all these years I started to let my inner self out more and more. My personality went through a change. Society was modernising, more and more success stories of all kinds of people from all layers in society were to be found on the internet, the name Caitlyn Jenner became living room jargon with the increasing popularity of the Kardashian clan. The world went through a fast wave of changes in acceptance of people who diverged from the standard. Slowly I began to realise that if I was able to overcome all those other obstacles in my life by believing in the potency of changing my mindset first - If I was able to do that all by myself - why couldn’t this work? Why couldn’t I change my negative mindset fueled by fear of what others would think about me, into a positive mindset fueled by confidence in your own power to achieve changes? I could do it. The more I started realising that my mindset changed from “ I could do it “ to “ I have to do it “ . No one promises you a tommorrow. Only a today. So what are you actually waiting for?
There is never a right moment. No one will do it in your place. That’s how I realised the valuable life lesson that I learned and that I want to share with others : The fairy with her magic wand will not come, because she’s there already but you didn’t want to see her. She has been there all along. You are that fairy. You have to be your own fairy to change what you want to change. And your magic wand is your ability to believe in overcoming your fears and following the inner wake-up call that drives you towards a change.
And that’s how my own magic wand with me as the fairy to operate it, changed an effeminate,nerdy weirdo without friends into a talented, happy, balanced young woman who is able to maintain friendships. Who is able to speak her mind and share her feelings, instead of bottling them up. Someone with a future.
And the sea I was floating on? The storms and the wild waves died down and the sea was navigable again, for the first time in as long as I can remember. I still surf on that same surfboard and I haven’t looked back ever since.
The power to transform what we want to transform, to change what we believe cannot be changed, comes through by allowing you to feel what you feel and to realise that we have control over how to handle these feelings.

Elissa W.