Landmark Stories

I’ve always carried a backpack. Over the years, it has held books for school, practice equipment, clothes for sleepovers, and my favorite teddy bear as a kid. If you look around at school, everyone has a different backpack. Some people use them to express themselves, others have clearly been passed down from siblings. My backpack seems simple and plain, until you look inside.

In the main part of my backpack, I carry my dyslexia. This is with me all day in every aspect of my life. When I am reading, the letters dance around the page, and it feels like they are trying to distract me. Carrying this in my backpack all day often leaves me mentally and physically exhausted, but I can never take my backpack off to relieve the weight, even when I go to hockey practice. On the ice, I appear confident but, even here, I carry the weight of my backpack. Despite having 10 years of experience, I need support to learn new drills and plays. When my coach briefs us on drills in practice, I find myself passing to the wrong teammate or going in the wrong direction. Unlike my teammates, I struggle to comprehend verbal directions, but when I’m able to see the plays in action, I am ready to go.

Even though the things I carry in my backpack can cause a lot of frustration, it also holds my most important relationships. The padded laptop sleeve inside my backpack is the most secure compartment, and it holds my most valuable school supply: my friendships. The sleeve keeps me safe throughout the school day, even when I drop my backpack onto the cafeteria floor or throw it into the passenger seat of my car. I have always cherished my relationships with my friends. Even though the people I’m closest to have changed throughout the years, each friendship I create has benefited me in similar ways throughout my life. If I’m having a bad day at school, I can always call on my high school friends to meet me during passing time or to vent with me during lunch. When I go to hockey practice, I have all of my friends on the team to rally around me if I mess up a play or get a penalty. These relationships need to be protected because they get me through my day-to-day challenges.

The front pocket of my backpack is where I keep the things I need to access quickly during the day: my siblings. Chris, Margo, and I are all 16 months apart, which means we have a better relationship than most people I have known with siblings. Even though I don’t see them as much as I see my friends, I know that they will always protect me and have my back no matter what because we are family. That being said, I also feel a weight in my backpack because of them. Being the youngest, they would always team up on me or tell me I couldn’t do something because I was too young or too small. I constantly feel pressure to be as “smart” as them in school, but this feels difficult because they always took AP and Honors classes while I was always pulled for “special help.” Though sometimes the front pocket of my backpack weighs me down, I know I can always count on them for everything.

I’ve always carried a backpack. Over the years it’s held my challenges, my friendships, and my family, and while I know that these pieces of my life are heavy, they are also essential to my success. As I progress to college, I am interested to see what new experiences will come my way and what my backpack will hold.  

Article originally published in The Lantern Fall 2022/Winter 2023.

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