“GABBY”

This piece is based upon a Caucasian girl, age 16

Her main quote: I’d like to think that I’m passionate too, like God is, just about my life and about the way I feel.

Some of her other quotes:

• Being a teenage girl is, like, your first time that you ever have freedom. 

• I think a lot of people think that teenage girls are pretty stupid.  I mean, ‘cause you don’t hear about the good things on the news that happen with kids, you always hear about the bad things, so it’s automatically, “Those adolescent girls, you know, they’re horrible people...they’re not as mature, they don’t really know what’s going on,”

• People don’t really understand that we’re smart enough to know what’s going on in the world, like with politics and everything.  They should listen to us instead of just being like, “Oh, you’re a teenage girl, whatever, you don’t know anything.” 

• I don’t have a problem with the way I look, but you know, everybody thinks, “Oh I wish I had her figure, I wish my butt was the same size as hers.” You think stuff like that....

• I would say that when I was “nobody”, I tried so hard to be somebody, yet I was still a nobody, so just kind of gave up on trying and just became myself.  And then all of a sudden I was making friends because of being who I was and then it was just like, “Oh, people like me for being who I am.  I’m just gong to keep doing it.” 

• I found authenticity, but I don’t think that some people are that open to the idea, or just, you know, they’re trying so hard to fit in.

• I’m pretty conservative, I’m not usually, like flaunting myself, but...my sexy self comes out once in a while.

• But with my mom’s side of the family...I’m an outcast, seriously an outcast.  My aunt e-mailed my mom and said, “Please, do not let Gabby wear her combat boots to my wedding.”  So I had to go and buy and outfit that was, like, completely, like, in style, you know so I would fit in when I went to her wedding and I felt like I didn’t fit in then because it was, like, I was trying so hard to fit in...

• I think everybody has at least one feature about them that makes them beautiful and unique...There is at least something that makes you pretty. 

•  My whole philosophy of life revolves around being yourself and doing what you want to do, even if it seems backwards to some people....’cause teenage girls that commit suicide or become anorexic or bulimic or anybody that has a problem when they’re a teenage girl—it’s because they’re too afraid to be themselves.