Pretend you have confidence, and you will get confidence. Pretend you have confidence, and you will get confidence. Pretend you have confidence, and you will get confidence. I kept mentally repeating this to myself, hoping that if I said it enough then it would come true. 

I laid down on the floor of my bedroom, staring up at the ceiling. This happened to be very comfortable and very calming. The ceiling in my light purple room is white, but I imagine different things. Sometimes my ceiling is the galaxy. Sometimes it’s a waterfall, or a forest. I also imagine different scenes and different ways my life could have gone. I imagine playing soccer with a sister or a brother; I imagine living on the California beach; I imagine visiting Paris; I imagine myself with friends. 

When I stare at the ceiling, I sometimes see an outline of me and I can change whatever I want about it. I start out with skin that’s barely able to pass the "paper bag test." My mom is a medium dark skinned African American, and my dad is a very light skinned African American. Therefore, I have quite light skin and can barely pass the paper bag test. 

My eyes are big and brown, nothing special about that. My nose and mouth is neither small nor big. My hair is a little above my shoulders, but it’s about where my armpit starts when it's straight. I’m 5’3” and have been told I look adorable. That’s not what a 16 year old wants to hear. I don’t want to be adorable. I want to be pretty. 

I’ve created multiple versions of me. I tend to start easy, like with my height. I become 5’7”. Then my nose. I make it more defined. My lips a tad plumper. I make my eyes smaller, but not too small. Then I change the color to a light blue or green. 

Then it gets more complicated. There are two paths I take. The black path and the white path. With the black path, I darken my skin tone. This way they can’t tell me my skin is too light for them. I’ll change my hair, too. I make it longer, to the tops of my hips, and make the curls more defined. 

If I’m taking the white path, I make my skin lighter. Not super pale, but light. My hair again is to the tops of my hips, but the texture is completely different. It’s bone straight. Now I’m beautiful. On the ceiling, my life is perfect. On the ceiling I am the true me, the one I’m supposed to be. The one who doesn’t get teased for being too light or too dark. The one who people want to be friends with. 

I’m halfway through my sophomore year of high school, and I still haven’t found the way to make friends. I don’t fit in. I tried to hang out with the black kids, but they tell me I’m not really black. According to them, I talk white, I walk white, and I listen to white music. This doesn’t make sense to me because we all talk and walk the same. And why should they care what music I listen to? They call me panda so I walk away, trying not to cry. 

It’s not fair. I’m light, but I’m still black. At least that’s what the white kids tell me when I try to hang out with them. They say I’m too black for them. They say I talk black, laugh black, and have black mannerisms. This doesn’t make sense because the black kids tell me I talk white. Also, I can’t control my laugh, and who’s to say which mannerisms are black? They call me Oreo so I walk away, trying not to cry. 

There’s no winning. There aren’t many light skin kids at my school, and there aren’t many black kids in general. I go to a small private school in Colorado. There is one other light skin kid in my grade, but he doesn’t talk much. There are some light skins in other grades, but I don’t like to venture out of my own grade. They probably wouldn’t even accept me if I did try to befriend them. I’ve decided I need to pick a side; either I go black or I go white. I must make one side accept me. I’ll try the black side first.  

As I walked into school on Monday, I was greeted by a fellow black kid. “Hey, Panda,” Mason said as he walked by me. He’s like the leader of the black kids. If I could get him on my side, I would be in for sure. 

“Hey, Mason,” I said too awkwardly and too late. Now he was going to think I’m even weirder. Great. I didn’t have much of a plan, which I’m assuming was the problem here. I decided to sit at the black table at lunch and hope for the best. 

“Hey guys,” I said, pulling a seat out to sit in. They all just stared at me. 

“What are you doing over here, Panda?” Brit said in her sassy tone. Brit was second in command and incredibly scary. 

“I was just going to sit with you guys for lunch. If that’s okay?” More blank stares. I had to think of something black to say quickly. “So, have any of you guys read Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye?” Silence. “It’s the one about the black girl with a sad life who wants blue eyes. Hah, relate,” I tried to joke. My fake laugh and goofy smile didn't go over well. 

I started to ramble. “It’s really sad actually. I cried multiple times. But man, Toni Morrison is such a good writer. Who knew you could feel so many feels while reading one book?” It was not getting better. They looked at me with amazement, probably thinking I was an idiot. It was time for me to shut up, but that wasn’t going to happen. “So Beyonce? Queen Bee, am I right?” 

“Why is this panda sitting in my seat?” Everyone at the table chuckled. Chills ran down my spine as I heard Mason’s voice. He was standing directly behind me. 

“Oh. Hey, Mason.” I turned around to face him. I tried to hide my fear with a big smile. “I thought I could eat lunch with you guys.” 

“Well, don’t.” He didn’t sound angry, he just sounded like he was talking to an idiot. Understandable. He stared at me until I got up. I went to the bathroom and cried.