MESSAGE FROM STUDENT

When I first arrived at Monarch School I was under the impression that we are here to get everything that we like taken away. I should say; everything we define ourselves by. I was so angry that they were taking away my clothes, my music, and TV. “They’re restricting who I am. I won’t conform to this,” I said. All that was happening was I was being stripped of the shell that I wore around everyday. Without this shell of an image - preppie, and distractions and TV, who am I?

“Who am I?” Upon arrival I was asked this question, and I had no idea. It struck me quite odd that without describing myself by my shell or my past, I had no idea who I really was, and how to describe myself. I had to really search and do a lot of work on “me” to even be able to describe myself. At that point I asked myself, “but why can’t I have all my stuff?” It was impossible for me to really get honest with myself as long as I was defining “me” by my labels that I was given at home and by my possessions.

What removing the entire aspect of image does is it adds a safety. Without being discriminated and separated by their clothes, people get to know each other for who they really are. It adds safety by putting everyone on the same playing field and eliminates social ranking. Without social ranking, the past “popular kid” can hang out with the past “nerd,” and realize that although they lived almost opposite lives at home, they struggle with the same issues and have a lot in common. I have gotten to know kids here that I never would have talked to at home, and I have been able to see through the front people try to put up when they first get here. This skill extends much further than a school in Montana.

Throughout my life, if I can really look past someone’s clothes and see them for who they are, it will be great. The possibilities are endless. My greatest fear and doubt is that this safety and lifestyle could never be carried out, or attained in the outside world. The beauty of the whole thing is that we create the environment around us.

I put myself in every situation I was in at home and how I surrounded myself with people that didn’t care and settled for their fronts as friends. Now seeing what I can have in life, and realizing that no true happiness lies in anything outside myself, I am left with a choice.

No one can make me live a certain way, and all I am doing here is taking a look at the other side of life that I could have. If I want to go back to the life I lived at home, I can. Now I know what I can have in either side, and I have felt true happiness. I have reconnected with a joy in myself that can come from no circumstance. I am happy with myself truly because I am being myself. I don’t need to rely on what I wear to define who I am. At home I strived to live a counterfeit life comprised of distracting myself from the truth. With all the distractions that I relied on taken away, I am found.

Mark L