I Am Not Jessica Chen

You have to prove yourself over and over, and when the glory for your most recent achievement expires, as it must, as it always will, you have to start again, but with more eyes trained on you, more people waiting for the day your talent withers, and your discipline weakens, and your charm wears away. Success is only meant to be rented out, borrowed in small doses at a time, never to be owned completely, no matter what price you're willing to pay for it.

We turn pain into a story, because then it has a purpose. Then, we reason, there was a point to it all along. But sometimes pain is just pain, and there’s nothing particularly noble about clinging to it.

If I’d kissed you,” he goes on, “you would have wanted me for an afternoon, and I would have wanted you for the rest of my life.

I've always had this theory that if I wanted something badly enough, the universe will make sure to keep it just out of my reach— either out of boredom or cruelty, like an invisible hand dangling stars on a string.

It's so easy to fall into the assumption that anything someone else gains is something you lose. To think of success as some lavish party with only a limited number of invites. To convince yourself that if you could only make it to a certain point in the distance, you'll finally find a place to rest. To feel like there's always more than you can do. But I mean, look what's being done to us - to our self-esteem, to our pride, to our bodies. We're exhausted and on the verge of breaking down at any second and... somehow we're expected to just keep going.

It's my life, I think with amazement, and it's beautiful, and I can paint it any color I want to.

It's so easy to be generous when you lack nothing. To be nice when you're not in pain. It doesn't matter if people are cheering for someone else, because they're already cheering for me.

It's cruel, really, how the world tends to present its most beautiful parts to you when you're so profoundly sad.

For everyone who's ever wished they could be someone else.

I am not Jessica Chen. And maybe Jessica Chen herself isn't either. Maybe nobody is. The very idea of her is a construct, a myth, a distraction, the dream we're forever reaching toward but can never equite grasp.

I’ve always wanted that: to be looked up at, to be known by people I’ve never even spoken to before, to be special, distinct, standing up on the tallest, brightest platform. But only now do I realize that when you’re out in the open, alone under the lights, and everyone else is in the darkness, you make for such a terribly easy target.

Because to me, wanting has always been indistinguishable from pain.

That's the one thing I've worked for my entire life -- to be someone who matters. That's why my parents moved to this country. That's my purpose. If I can't do it, then what's the point of anything? What's the point of me? What possible value could I provide?

Sometimes I forget that in the bigger scheme of things, it's okay to not be the best at everything. To be surrounded by people who can solve problems you can't, who are talented in different ways, who will go on to change the world.

Something in me is missing. Lacking.

There's nothing you want more than to want -- you'll obsess over something, and convince yourself that so long as you get it, you'll be happy, but then once you do, you're immediately dissatisfied and want something else.

look what’s being done to us—to our self-esteem, to our pride, to our bodies. We’re all exhausted and on the verge of breaking down at any second and somehow . . . somehow we’re expected to just keep going.

This would be an absolutely incredible, life-changing thing if it happened to me. But for you? It's just another accomplishment, isn't it?

You know, I used to have this theory that if I wanted something badly enough, the universe would make sure to keep it just out of my reach. Like a cruel joke, or a trick. But . . . maybe the cruelest trick the universe can play on us is to give us exactly what we wish for.

Success is only meant to be rented out, borrowed in small doses at a time, never to be owned completely, no matter what price you’re willing to pay.

And I'm certain in this very moment that if I had to walk deep into the woods, into a burning house, down into the depths of hell itself, he would still accompany me, just to make sure I don't leave his sight.

The sun is bursting through my chest, breaking past my lips. It's my life, I think with amazement, and it's beautiful, and I can paint it any color I want to. Right now it's drenched in the brighest shade of gold. I have the brush in my hands, and the canvas is mine. It's all mine.

They've bet everything on me- their time and energy and savings- and this is what I have to show for it. Sunk costs. A failed investment.

One minute until the email from Harvard arrives. Until I can know for certain if I was accepted or not. If I'm good enough or not.

I pick my way through the rest of the email, as if there might be some other piece of information I'd missed, some final thread of hope. But all I see is further confirmation of what I've always known, deep down in the core of me. In recent years . . . faced with increasingly difficult decisions . . . In addition, most. candidates present strong personal and exctracurricular credentials . . . I'm simply not that good. Not in academics. Not in extracurriculars. Not as a student, or a daughter, or a human. It doesn't matter if I crammed my brain to the point of breaking formula and dates, threw myself into my classes, painted until the skin on my hands blistered and split open. Here is incontrovertible proof. Something in me is missing. Lacking.

Clearly, they all thought I was worse than them. So I had to be better. I had to be so good they couldn’t ignore me anymore. If I wanted to be loved, I had to best them all

I’m not sad because I don’t love life enough, but because I love life too much. I always want more of it.

I’ve never known how to witness dusk without feeling a dull sense of grief: another day gone, another day lost where I’m still the same.

You’re sensitive, and maybe that means you feel pain and fear and humiliation more sharply, but you also feel joy more beautifully and completely than anyone I know.