Becoming a Wallflower

Over the last few months, Maya had been feeling incompetent. A slight insecurity had always been there but recently it became amplified, and then it became too much for her to bear.



Around her, she could feel waves of underestimation radiating from her peers. They never really thought she could live up to excellence. Maya had always been self-dependent and deep down she was confident that she would be someone amazing at some point. But then, she started doubting herself because everyone else thought she was ‘ordinary’, ‘bland’ or ‘book-smart.’ They all thought she was good at whatever she had to learn academically, but everyone thought that that was as far as her potential went. It may have been that they didn’t realize what they were saying and how it hurt her, but nonetheless it did hurt her, it sucked up her confidence like a baby with a lollipop. Every time someone would say that the only thing she had were her grades, and that too because she memorized information; a part of her would lose its spark. She would lower her head and attempt to act like she never heard their biting remarks. It was often too that her peers would say she wasn’t ‘scholarship material’ because she was simply only book smart, and she would actually have to be ‘real-life smart’ if she wanted to make it in the world. They didn’t know her, and yet they said that about her. They didn’t know that inside that girl was someone artistic, someone creative, and someone that was utterly beautiful. It hurt her and she thought that she could prove them wrong, but she couldn’t.



Their voices were overpowering and their doubts contagious. Maya lost the special flair and the bright smile that was her signature. She didn’t even believe she could do anything anymore. She became more aware of her movements and felt like every waking moment was one where she did something wrong. Insecure was an understatement for her.

The comments weren’t exactly scathing but they did have an effect, an effect that shattered her self-confidence to bits similar to that of shards of broken glass. Maya didn’t know what she could do. She thought that maybe she was over-thinking all of it; maybe it was just in her head. But even when she thought that, she knew she was grasping at straws because the truth was that it was all happening. So slowly, Maya misplaced her special flair, or maybe she became too afraid to ever show it to people again because she knew that her confidence couldn’t take another blow to the gut.



She tried to be invisible, tried to blend in with the crowds of people. Maya became an introvert of sorts; she didn’t bother doing anything anymore and was simply an observer of the world. She became a wallflower.