when i look into the mirror
warrior woman i see
strong woman
weak woman
optimistic woman
hopeless woman
mature woman
naïve woman
wise woman
panicked woman
because college simply has a way
of gently coaxing your superpowers to the surface of your skin
hot
and throwing your super demons back in your face
cold

Laughing heartily with my mom and aunts, I watched the blurs of Harvard’s campus pass us as we moved toward the Yard, my new home. Students moved with purpose to and from various locations, making my nerves buzz in excitement at the thought of diving into that same rhythm. Before I could find a cozy corner in my thoughts, I was brought back into reality by the sweeping of my parents, making of my bed by my aunts, and the decorating of my walls by uncles. I looked around in awe at the place I was supposed to inhabit with ease for a year, and at once, all the emotions came crashing down on me. It resembled my home, but it was not my home. It didn’t smell familiar, and as I looked into the sad faces surrounding me, the tears couldn’t have run down my face any faster.

Throughout high school, I was the living model of what every student could imagine being. Loving, caring, hardworking, high achieving, dedicated, compassionate. I was happy with my life, well supported and thriving without any real insecurities about who I was. Well rooted in the affirming words of my mother and the teachings of my Christian community, I had every intention of molding Harvard into what I wanted it to be without conforming to its mold. In my first week on campus, I could still taste the excitement of my acceptance on my tongue. I got into Harvard. An Ivy league school. THE Ivy league school. I had proven to myself, my family, and so many naysayers that I had the intellectual pedigree to be in a place as prestigious as Harvard. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t speak these words with arrogance. The confidence I brought to college with me came after many years of working through issues related to being bullied as a child. I also don’t speak those words with an ounce of privilege. As a low-income, first generation college student, it was an incredibly humbling yet heavy feeling to know that I was an answered prayer for my cotton-picking ancestors. I had broken the glass ceiling on an educational system they never believed in, for themselves or for me. I know with finite certainty that without my God, parental encouragement, and due diligence, I wouldn’t be half the woman and student that Harvard felt important enough to be in this space.

Soon, I found myself immersed in campus life, as if I had been an integral member all along. In addition to my activism and health related classes, I spent my time in leadership with the Black Students Association, worked with a social justice and wellness publication, and performed spoken word at as many events as I could. I developed the reputation of a trailblazer, a woman of color who cared not just about the community as an entity, but the weight of individual souls, and I couldn’t be prouder of it because it couldn’t be truer. I literally poured myself into the hands of a community that I felt would never purposely disappoint or hurt me in the ways I had heard from other peers a few years ahead of me. I always thought that I would never be the sad story, the girl who lost her sense of self, we, and free by the end of her freshman year. With my classes and responsibilities picking up speed in the second semester of my first year, I soon heard the voices of the communities I carried on my back, cautioning me in my mind. I could hear family from home praying that I don’t mess up. I could hear frenemies hoping for a vice to suck me under. I could her my Afro-Caribbean community waiting patiently for a revolutionary idea to sweep myself and the rest of them off our feet. In my mind, I could hear everyone chanting, “don’t miss this chance to set us all free,” even when they weren’t speaking at all. I became deliriously motivated to work even harder to show everyone what I should have already known: I am qualified to be here.

While many allude to the concept of “sophomore slump,” no one really talks about how sophomore year changes your life. In the fall semester, every pillar that I centered myself on crumbled, and I soon found myself on the other side of an identity crisis. I disconnected from many of the friends that I was close to in the previous year. My academics were challenging me to use muscles I didn’t know existed. My spoken word endeavors quickly became running a business. My self-care became rushed fifteen-minute naps in between 5 back-to-back classes. I didn’t feel the glow of being a Harvard student anymore. I didn’t feel the same twinkle and sparkle when I saw a logo. All I could see were the marks I couldn’t meet, and the things I had yet to do. All I could see was the emptiness of my college life, and that combined with homesickness, created a great recipe for all of my past doubts and insecurities to rear their ugly head. When I asked college graduates in my hometown about college, I can’t remember them ever saying that college could and would bring out the absolute best in you just as easily as it revealed the ugly hurt that may remain in you. Doubts that I thought I had addressed as a child and young teenager came back full force during my sleepless nights of writing, studying, and problem set completion, and I truly didn’t know what to do. I am the person who always has it together, so when almost every aspect of my life disintegrated during one of the most enriching and important times of my life, I knew I had received my very first dose of adulthood.

Life has a funny way of making you believe that you know what you are doing until you don’t and you are attempting to reconstruct the very foundation of your beliefs. It will take you down paths that you never even considered, yet they are the roads that often bear the wisest fruit. Now thriving as a second semester sophomore, even in the midst of Organic Chemistry, I can identify so many areas of growth within myself due to having to tear down the platforms on which I cultivated my beliefs, dreams, and thoughts. College hasn’t become easier, and uprooting events continue to pop up on me like an annoying friend you’ve grown to love, but I’ve been the best transformation out of all of this. I have learned that choosing me extends beyond the good times, in my academics, relationships and spiritual life. Choosing me is a radical form of grace that will ultimately propel me to the level of maturity, happiness, and joy I aspire to maintain in all areas of my life. The Najya of freshman year and sophomore fall learned so much about herself, her boundaries, and the sound of her body’s whispers. She learned that the independence you gain in college can seduce you into believing that the responsibility of it doesn’t exist. She grew in her ability to be a lover of herself, before she is a lover of the people she wants to serve.

I am stepping into womanhood, and as I continue to wander down this road, I take pride in knowing that this has only been the tip of the iceberg. Now that I know what it feels like to run from the vulnerability of cracking myself open and diving within, I vow to never stop burying into the depths of myself, in search of the truth, power, strength, and divinity I’ve always had within me.

application essays — accepted, Harvard