I am every woman I have ever met.
My sister Chloe taught me how to be a girl. I'm not just talking about the endless hours she put into teaching me how to apply blush or braid my hair. I'm talking about the love and compassion she gave me; her tenderness is woven through me like a piece of thread. Now, when I touch my cheek or brush my hair, I feel the love of my sister. We were all sorts of things together: fairies, storytellers, dreamers. But most importantly, we were girls. But then, Chloe went to boarding school. I was only 11, but I had to be brave to live without her, and I was made brave by Chloe, which is to say I was made brave by love.
Chloe returned for a school break with Amelie, a foreign exchange student from Germany. Amelie had blonde hair and blue eyes like me but, unlike me, spoke three languages and played tennis like a pro. Amelie didn’t do quiet, she spoke and laughed like no one else was around. As a loud kid who had been told to take up less space my whole life, Amelie gave me confidence in my voice and showed me how to take up the space I needed. Watching her be herself unapologetically made me more secure in becoming who I wanted to be.
One Christmas, Chloe and Amelie brought another girl home. Anna Maria was an exchange student from Spain and I saw right away that she was the opposite of Amelie, and so the opposite of me. Her long black hair made her stick out, and she was reserved and quiet, which made me feel shy. But then one night, Anna Maria cooked my family her favorite dinner, Spanish cornbread and soup, something she said her mother made all the time. Watching her cook side by side with my mother showed Anna Maria’s vulnerability, and that night around the dinner table, we both opened up. This was another example for me to learn from; I was learning to become a woman.
This summer, Chloe returned home after her college graduation and found a job at a small Mediterranean restaurant on our town's main street. There, Chloe befriended a Ukrainian girl named Olya, in the US on a work visa after fleeing her war-torn country. Olya’s father and uncle remained in Ukraine while her mother and little sister escaped to Italy. Olya was still learning English, but our language barrier didn’t hinder our growing friendship. She was fierce but sweet, and so funny we could spend all day laughing. Chloe went back to Florida after the summer, but Olya and I still enjoyed movies and late night walks. One night, we sat in the warm basement of my house and she told me how much my relationship with Chloe reminded her of her own relationship with her little sister; she’d talked to her sister the day before and she was struggling to learn Italian and fit in at school. I saw how sad Olya was for her sister and I wondered how she laughed so brightly moments before. I realized that Olya, like me, was made brave by her sister, which is to say she was made brave by love.
The female collective is the universal girl experience. The compassion I hold towards each of these women has influenced my feminism and key components of my personality. As my life intertwined with each of theirs, I got glimpses of different girlhoods, different versions of my own life that gave me a clearer understanding of myself, of who I've become, and of who I'll continue to become. Because of Amelie, I'll speak my mind; because of Anna Maria, I will allow myself to be vulnerable; because of Olya I will be brave enough to love. And because of Chloe, I will stay tender. Phoebe Hughes ’28
This essay does a really good job of telling the reader about the student's family and friends while also giving us an idea of who she is and the lessons she learned from the women around her. Although she was not the main character in these encounters, she was able to beautifully recount the stories and moments to tell a story that is meaningful and applicable to her … and thus is about her. It was a masterful way of highlighting her relationships while telling us about herself.