student voice
S ylv i e Pi n g e o n ’ 2 1
Lost and Found Senior Sylvie Pingeon wrote this thoughtful piece for her collegeapplication essay. She’ll be attending Wesleyan University in the fall.
I
’m sitting in my dad’s car, parked in our yard with the windows rolled down. My legs are pressed against my chest, limb against limb, folded into myself. I’m silently chanting a question over and over— “Who am I? Who am I?”—even though I already know the answer. My sister, Chloe, is outside, engaged in some deep conversation with my father about the mystery of life and how hard it is to know people, including herself. She’s 11. I am 9, and I’m acutely aware of this two-year gap, of how smart she is and how grown up. Because I know who I am. I am Sylvie. I like words and nature, blueberries and dogs. Mud fights and playing pretend. I know exactly who I am, even the parts I don’t have words for, and this must mean there isn’t much to me. I can hear Chloe outside the car. “I hate the word ‘bad,’” she is saying. “I don’t think anything can be so simple.” My dad stares at her, a proud half-smile on his face. And then I am stepping out of the car and running toward him. “I don’t know who I am!” I lie. “I’m freaking out!” His smile is directed at me now. “Sylvie,” he says. “I still don’t know exactly who I am. People are complicated, and you’re only 9. If you knew who you were, that’d be boring.” He turns back to Chloe. I can still breathe and see and smile. It’s sunny out, and the air is dense, and the long grass curls around my ankles. But even as I stand on the too-hot lawn, disconnected, wrapped in panic and 40
| Riparian |
s p ri ng 2 0 2 1
“I’ve experienced aging as a kind of dismantling. The more I think about what constitutes a self and explore these questions through philosophy, poetry, and history, the more uncertain I become about human nature— my nature—and the more inadequate any label starts to feel.” in grass, my sense of self remains stubbornly intact. So I return to the car, press my knees to my chest, repeat the question: “Who am I? Who am I?” I wait for more pieces to appear, wait to grow smarter, wait to forget the answer. And then I am 17, in the same red car, driving myself down the highway. I’m trying to focus so I don’t miss my exit, but that stupid question keeps popping into my head: “Who am I?” I still like blueberries and dogs. I like exercising and proving people wrong. The labels are there, but they no longer feel like the answer to the question. Student. Friend. Writer. Sister. I rip away the layers. Who am I? An onion. Peel the skin. Another layer. Peel it off. More white scales. One last layer, then nothing. No center. No immutable core. I once yearned for this feeling, this lack of security which I equated with complexity, but now, I want the answers back. “Finding yourself” is a common cliché about growing up. With age, you gain knowledge; with knowledge, you grow whole. But I’ve
experienced aging as a kind of dismantling. The more I think about what constitutes a self and explore these questions through philosophy, poetry, and history, the more uncertain I become about human nature— my nature—and the more inadequate any label starts to feel. Sometimes, though, I’m flooded with a clarity that returns me to my childhood self. I’m driving again. It’s nighttime and snowing, the roads empty. I narrate the scene in my head. The snow is drifting with an urgency where the word “drifting” doesn’t feel appropriate, but it is drifting nonetheless. In a dazed stupor, I park on the side of the road. And then my fingers are typing onto my phone, and it isn’t my conscious self doing this writing, but rather some deep, inevitable part of me. Briefly, I know who I am, even the parts I don’t have words for. I’m beyond labels, but I don’t mind. For a moment, I’m complete. Then I restart the engine, turn on the wipers, begin to drive, and feel this knowing seep away, held only in the imprint of my words.
