My Soul and I by Sarah Ryan - Winchester Thurston School

My Soul and IBy Sarah RyanShe looked at me and said, “You’re black.”Then she turned to my soul and said, “You’re black”“Yeah, I know” I saidMy soul nodded, “yeah,” it said, “I know.”My soul and I had stumbled over what to fill out on the application in the ethnicity category.There was no category for half black-half white. I didn’t want to be the pedantic kid whochecked other, refusing to define herself as one ethnicity, righteously protesting categorization.Because I don’t care. I know I’m black; when you mix two colors together, the darker one winsout.My soul, however, tried to mask its surprise. It didn’t know it was black. But why? Itwasn’t that it thought it was white. It thought it was self. It thought it was special, different,unique, indefinable. Obviously not. It was black. How could it go this long without knowing?I had grown up in a very diverse environment. Everyone had labels like, black, white,Hispanic, Indian or Asian. On our first day of school we had tags to tell people our names. Mysticker said, “Hello, My name is Sarah.” My skin said, “Hello, I’m black.” We didn’t wear ourname tags the second day and everyone forgot, but we kept our ethnicity on, so that no onewould have to ask. I knew people saw that I was black and because of it, knew things about me.They knew my ancestors we slaves. They knew they struggled and fought for freedom. They also

assumed things about me. At first, the assumptions could shove me down. I would trip, theirwords like gravel, tearing into my palms and knees and peeling my skin back until it began tosting and foam blood. Eventually I grew calluses, hardly feeling it at all.My soul never grew calluses. It did not know that everything being said applied to it. Notthat everything was offensive, but it meant that people would rather group all black soulstogether than get to know my soul personally. Up until now, my soul thought it was being judgedon merit. My soul wondered why the application readers needed to know it at all. Theapplication had sections for grades, extracurricular activities, recommendations, a personalstatement, and finances, for aid, but what would race tell it? How do skin color and heritageweigh in to the decision? These were neither accomplished nor earned.Marking down black on an application could be to my advantage when I apply to college.If there are two students with identical applications applying they will often go with the minority,or so I’m told. I do see that there is some unfairness to this, but when I apply to school I will doanything to make myself look better. If they pick me to boost their minority numbers, that’s fine.I can show schools my talents once I am already there.My soul does not like to ask for help or to be given an unfair advantage. When itsfortitude and determination pay off, my soul is reassured of its abilities and feels talented.Thinking that it did not earn all of its opportunities crushes it. Did people see its talent? Its hardwork? All its life my soul had thought it was given opportunities because of its effort. My soullost confidence.I saw my soul on the ground nursing its skinned knee, sipping air, trying to keepcomposure. I helped it up. I told it that time heals all wounds; my soul just needed some time to