The following is an essay that I wrote as apart of my Yale Application. The prompt was to reflect on my membership in a community.
Every Tuesday, when I would set foot into my religious education classroom in elementary school, I played the part of the perfect little Catholic girl, fulfilling my duty to be a role model in my church. In reality, I was increasingly struggling with my faith. I felt like I had an obligation to uphold this reputation of being a "model Catholic". This self-imposed pressure prevented me from confronting my doubts and instead I let them amplify as I moved to the middle school program. Eventually, I was drowning in uncertainty so I finally approached my parents with how lost I was feeling. I feared their response. I thought that they would be disappointed in me for challenging the very thing that was supposed to be the foundation of my life, but instead I was greeted with a constructive conversation on not just my own anxieties but also theirs.
I learned two things that day, my parents' love for me is unending and questioning the world around me is essential to moving forward. If I hadn't opened up to my parents, I would still be under the impression that insecurity in my beliefs is a terrible thing. When instead, the truth is that I should feel encouraged to challenge what I am given and what I am taught. Since then, car rides and family dinner nights have been filled with these types of conversations, ones that reevaluate the world and produces new perspectives and I am far better because of them.