Now I can say hello

If you put me under a black light you would find a mess of scars and stains.

I’m sure if I examined you I would find much of the same.

These scars and stains are our personal stories of trials and tribulations, quests of finding ourselves and learning from a couple decades of rights and wrongs. And amongst them all, there is somehow beauty in everyone’s mess.

Now, before you move on from these cheesy words of self-love, you have gone through the same stages of doubt and unawareness, however extreme or minute your case may be. You don’t have to admit it if you don’t want to, but everyone’s level of self-confidence stems from a score sheet judged by others more often than by ourselves.

The person who smiled and winked at you as you walked into Ballantine Hall left you walking on air for the rest of the day.

The person who didn’t laugh at your well thought out joke left you feeling stupid and misunderstood.

We are all the same, just made up of different degrees, skin tones, sexual orientations, political parties, grades of hair, types of faith and computer preferences.

These marks buried beneath our skin and embedded into our souls should bring us together and make us share stories with others day in and day out.

But instead, we allow the beauty of who we are form walls between ourselves and others.

A classic example would be walking down a pathway with one other person heading toward you, and more often than not, you fidget with your cell phone, adjust your earphones, or worse, look right past the other person sharing your lane as if they aren’t there.

But isn’t there always that slight hope they will acknowledge you so you can relax your muscles, meet their eyes and say “Hi” back and maybe even smile?

Okay, I’m paying a lot of attention to detail and assuming that everyone else uses this defense mechanism I use from time to time.

The bottom line: It’s time we start an evaluation of self and allow ourselves to be seen by others in our entirety.

In my weeks as a freshman amongst 40,000 other people on this campus, I’ve crawled back into my proverbial shell a bit, wondering how I will make it through the next four years of everyone bustling back and forth, rarely being greeted with a random “Hey, how are you?”

Or worse, being looked at like I am a strange otherworldly creature when I take the initiative to say hello.

I’ve always been the person to step out of the boundaries to make people feel uncomfortable, even myself. That’s the only way to see someone in their true light. Not doing what is expected will make a shy girl smile and even the most conceited guy blush.

I can’t say I don’t care what others think, because everyone does, even if it is just slightly. But I always get a random sense of joy when I say “Hello” to a stranger and don’t think about what scars or stains they might see once I make myself visible. That one moment where I let the walls around me come crashing down, hoping that the stranger will do the same, I am saying more than “Hello.”

I’m putting myself out there.

“Hi. I’m Aysia. I’m a student with average grades but an extraordinary mind. I’m one of the 10 girls on campus with a stomach. I hate climbing six sets of stairs in Wright Quad all day, every day. I’m ‘too black’ for the white kids and definitely ‘too white’ for the black. It’s hard to get eye contact when I have such a blatant chest. I hate my nose. My feet are big. Get to know me or just say ‘Hi’ back.”

And that’s all I really want: more people to say "Hi" back.

It is time to get comfortable with yourself. Put yourself under the black light and pay attention to the details that could set you apart from the crowd and make you feel right at home.

Tomorrow, say "Hello" or "Hi" back.  

Strike up a conversation with someone you end up awkwardly sitting next to.

Do yourself a favor and get out of your own way, because we’re all just
dying to see you.


E-mail: aysymatz@indiana.edu