As most families go, mine is far from perfect. For most of my life, I’ve had to follow in my older sister’s footsteps. For everything that she did, I’ve had to fight to do things as exceptional as my sister did. I have struggled to make my actions acceptable enough for my parents, but with hard work I’ve done the best I can. As I got older, I learned that my parents treated me so that they push me to do the best that I can with everything that I do. Failing is a scary thing to encounter, but I have learned if you keep trying to achieve your goals and get to the where you want to be, you will be at your absolute best. With all the activities, hobbies, and titles I have been awarded and participated in, I am remarkably blessed to have had each and every opportunity to define who I am. Although my family is flawed, this is an important lesson I learned from them and also having an older sister.
My sister, Lacey, was the first-born in the family and was the first one to go to high school. She was involved in musicals and drama club and was always the enthusiastic character. She was always having a great time up on stage, and that everyone took pleasure in encountering. By the time I finally got to high school to join her, she was a senior. No one really knew exactly who I was, only that I was “Lacey Smith’s little sister”, this included students and teachers. When a musical at my school was holding auditions, I felt like I was good enough to get the lead role. After days of anxiously waiting I didn’t get a callback, which meant I did not get the role that I wanted, but my sister did. With my sister getting a lead role, and me not, a big conflict occurred in my house. I did, however, end up being lucky enough to receive a role that involved a big dancing part with all seniors. This finally put me on the map of being more than just “Lacey’s little sister”. I was honored and ended up loving every minute of the musical. During the rest of my high school years, I was involved in three more musicals, all of which I got minor speaking roles in. After feeling my parent’s disappointment, I worked as hard as I could to get the lead roles in all the musicals I participated in after my freshman year. I felt good about how hard I worked at getting each part, but I still felt like I was being overshadowed by the always-leading role Lacey.
Lacey has many talents; her main one is being an incredible writer. For her graduation, she gave an amazing speech I will never forget, it was breath taking and I was so proud of her. Within three short years, I was up on that very same stage where Lacey gave her speech, but instead I was going to be singing. I auditioned with the song called “I was here” by Lady Antebellum. There were only two open spots to have someone sing and I was one of them. I felt so blessed to have been picked out of all the auditions to sing at my own graduation and to sing as a soloist. The whole place was jam-packed and it was an amazing feeling to be up there, singing my heart out for the very first time with such a huge crowd, but also the very last time with so many eyes watching me. After I finished the song, I looked to my left and saw my father bawling his eyes out. I’ve never seen my dad cry like that or ever cry for that matter. To this day, he tells me how proud he is of me and that I have such a gift. Whenever that song comes on in a car ride, he makes me sing it and then talks about how I “kicked it out of the ball park” that day at graduation. All he does is try to make my dreams come true and pushes me to my absolute breaking point, he’s my rock and I love him.
I now challenge myself to go above and beyond on almost every aspect of my life. From that day on after graduation, my older sister no longer overshadows me. I am no longer just the little sister of Lacey Smith. I made my mark and showed people who I am. With good intentions, my parents pushed me to be the very best I could. I was afraid of failing on something that my sister had done, but I continued to do my best and kept moving forward. As William Edward Hickson famously stated, “If at first you don’t succeed: Try, try, try again.” I live by this quote each day and each day I continue to try for new opportunities.