"I Wish I'D Known In High School…" - Sabrina Ward Harrison looks back on her adolescence

CosmoGirl!, Dec, 2001

different is beautiful

I wasn't a girl who peaked in high school. I'd look at the smooth ways of the girls around me. They laughed with such ease. I craved what seemed like incredible confidence. "Should I change this? Fix that?" Maybe it was being a freckle-faced, brown-haired Canadian in a Southern California blonde world. I wasn't a cheerleader. I wasn't good at sports or an academic. I was Sabrina...just trying to make it through. I found my way late in the game. I came across a darkroom at school. In that quiet space, I taught myself photography--and began to trust who I was. I'd write my thoughts on each photo, then paste them in a journal till it became thick, bursting with the life collecting inside it. Those journals led to my first book, Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself. A book that was written by someone still finding her way. wish I had known while I was growing up that other people--the ones who looked like they had it together--suffered the same insecurities I did. Our lives are a work in progress. As Walt Whitman said, "These are the days that must happen to you...." I'm glad I didn't peak in school. Today I can love my freckles and funny hair. I wish I'd known the value of my uniqueness. Stay true to your own story. Don't fight your fears-- respect them! Following your own road is the bravest, most powerful way to live.

By Sabrina Ward Harrison, author of Brave on the Rocks: If You Don't Go. You Don't See, Villard Books, 2001