Meet Braelyn’s Backpack

My bag is less about what it holds and more what it symbolizes: new beginnings—the releasing of my past in order to take hold of my future. It represents the transition between young and naïve to strong and certain. 

When I put down my black sparkly book bag, with my name bedazzled on front, and picked up my olive-green purse, I knew it was time for a switch in my life.  

If you want to meet my purse, then you’re asking to meet an amount of baggage that could fill an airport. It houses so many things: loose, crumbled papers from nights so restless that all I could do was write down my thoughts hoping that, on paper, would make sense. It is also home to an old stack of study note cards, and, finally a yearbook, filled with fever-dream-like moments.  

At first glance, my purse seems mundane. But, I could give list everything in it with my eyes closed. There is a rose gold pencil with a black zipper in it. A pink notebook with a grey binding always sits in front of my laptop in a blush pink case. If I dig deeper, I’ll stumble across a few straggling pens that didn’t make it back into their case.   

My purse tells a completely different story than my book bag. Right at the surface, there’sa  happiness so immense that it could my make the darkest of hearts smile. Underneath, there’s a grey notebook, covered in flowers, filled with all the notes that I need to make my hopes come true. In my purse is a certitude and willingness to make sure that everything I do will set me on a path that ensures my extraordinary future.