The Stories Stars Tell: A Letter from Emma Matthews
The Stories Stars Tell, releasing October 13
Dear Reader,
I’m Emma Matthews. If I had a trading card it would read: Salutatorian. Got into Berkley. Christian. Daughter of Mo and Amy Matthews. Big sister to Shelby. Best friend of Liam Quinn and Ginny Connelly. Kissed Tanner James and would have risked eternal damnation to do more. Questioning her life.
I didn’t realize facing graduation from high school would wreak havoc on my identity. I’ve been ready to move on from high school for so long, always looking ahead to what’s next. Focused on what it would take to see that happen and leave behind the stifling expectations of those around me. Now that graduation is impending, and I’m writing this speech I’m supposed to give at the ceremony, I’m looking at the choices I’ve made and wondering if I played my experience right?
I know. That sounds exactly like something someone like me—a perfectionist—would ask herself.
I played part of it right. I got into a great college. I’ve got this “salutatorian” thing on my resume. Great friends and family. I’ve lived inside the boxes I made for myself and checked all of the other boxes of what it means to be a successful student and a good daughter. It’s just that graduation has me asking myself if maybe I’ve shirked developing a different part of myself because I've been afraid.
I’ve got two weeks left of my high school career and a summer before college, and I wonder how I might live it if I stripped away the fear? What kind of choices would I make if I weren’t so afraid of not being perfect? I know without a doubt, I would want to change the way things went down with Tanner James. Not the kiss, of course, but that I took a backseat to risk following that path. Why? Because I was afraid (and maybe I feel like I don’t deserve to, but that’s for a different letter).
So that’s the big theme for me right now, I guess. What would I do if I wasn’t afraid? The thing is, I’m mostly always afraid and wish it weren’t that way. A terrible cycle. There’s this quotation in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, one of my favorite movies, in which Cameron (my spirit character) says, “I’m not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I’m going to take a stand. I’m going to defend it. Right or wrong. I’m going to defend it.” The question is am I brave enough to do it?
Emma
Releases October 13, 2020
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