I grew up with superheroes: Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, comics, posters, action figures, Halloween costumes… It’s safe to say that I was obsessed. I dreamed of having abilities like them, to be other-worldly and powerful in a way I could never be. I dreamed of being in their universe and having someone like them to save us all, to hold those who are suffering and pained in the palm of their hands and cradle them, not crush them.

Out of all of the Marvel superheroes, Spider-Man was always my favorite. He is the sun personified: his powers initially cause him to be considered as dangerous and not to be trusted by the people of New York City. The police tried to arrest him. Citizens talked bad on his name. He’s a human, yet alien in a way that makes him an outcast from everyone around him because no matter what, he will always be a mutate. And yet, despite everything, he is love. He represents hope, kindness and safety. He’s someone who children run to in times of need and who everyone in the city knows they can rely on.

When I first entered high school, I was a coward. I was afraid of everything: afraid of trying new things, afraid of failing, afraid of people and afraid of my future. I barely spoke if I wasn’t spoken to. I had a small group of friends that I was still hesitant to talk freely with in fear that I would be judged if I were to let out everything that was on my mind without carefully filtering it first. I didn’t realize at the time just how exhausting it was.

In my sophomore year, I decided on a whim to take newspaper for a semester to see how I liked it, and it was a decision that I assumed would be inconsequential. I was wrong. The course challenged me and my writing unlike any class or extracurricular I’d participated in before, and I quickly found myself becoming engrossed in every article that I wrote. I was still painfully scared of my writing not being up to par, and the relaxed atmosphere of the classroom with such a lively group of students made me feel out of place, but there was a quiet satisfaction that I now felt from finding something other than school to focus my attention on.

Years passed, and I felt like I had stayed exactly the same. Even on my 18th birthday, I felt like I was still 14, wide-eyed and unsure about everything, and I felt like a fraud. What I hadn’t noticed was that I had changed. I had forced myself out of my comfort zone over and over again throughout my time in high school, and I had thought of myself as a coward for the discomfort that I had felt. But in reality, that awkwardness mattered more than anything else because it was from that discomfort that I grew.

Words flew from my mind to my mouth without my past hesitation or overthinking. Sentences
started sounding less like constant questions of my own resolve and more like actual statements. My time in marching band gave me leadership experience, and I became comfortable with shouldering responsibility and being a figure of authority. A quiet confidence grew within me. I was none the wiser to this change until others pointed it out for me, and I finally realized that I hadn’t stuttered or shrank back into myself in years.

My growth was a result of countless instances of me forcing myself to try new things and push through challenges, but it all started with newspaper, when I nervously stepped into 242 for the first time with my heart beating too fast and my brain running at a million miles an hour. My first experience with making myself uncomfortable for the sake of wanting to stop being a coward was here.

I owe it all to the people around me: to my newspaper advisor, Evva Starr, who greeted me with a smile the first time that I met her and never stopped treating me with overwhelming kindness, to my fellow journalists who struggling with me to create our pages during every press day and to my friends outside of newspaper who never discouraged me from taking newspaper on a whim and have always been there for me.

I had looked up to Spider-Man since I was a child, and I still do, but I now realize that I have unknowingly embodied one of his central messages. I encourage you to do the same. Be uncomfortable. Feel scared. Be brave through it all. Taking that leap of faith may be the best thing you’ll ever do.