I had a mission: to replace my identity as the quiet girl with something else. Anything else, really. But I didn’t have quite a lot to be known for.

BY SARAN DAVAAJARGAL

IMAGE BY JASMINE COWAN

When I was in middle school, my greatest goal in life was to be unnoticed. I was a shy and self-conscious adolescent with an increasing awareness of other people’s expectations and perceptions. It didn’t help when my parents decided to move our family to a new city—a move that turned my world upside down. The backyard was replaced with a small playground, the dirt roads became pavement, and my home became an apartment in a strange, new city. But, for me, the most important part of the move was going to a new school.  

The evening before my first day in the new school, I was so nervous that I had a hard time picking out what to wear, which is usually my area of expertise. I asked my parents and sisters for their opinions. My dad recommended I wear my pink jacket—my signature clothing item at the time—saying he wanted me to be comfortable and feel like my regular self. My mom, who was always anxious about whether I was staying warm, suggested that I wear my green corduroy pants, just in case the air conditioner in the classroom made me too cold. My eldest sister said she’d let me borrow her blue sneakers—one of the newest and nicest items she had. I finished off the outfit with an old red backpack—a hand-me-down from my middle sister. When I stepped into school the next day, I realized that my outfit was a huge mistake. Everyone was wearing white, navy blue, or black, while I was looking just a tiny bit like a clown in my all-too-colourful outfit. Some of the students in the hallway silently smirked, and some of them audibly gasped. Being the new kid in school is hard enough as is. But being the new kid in the wrong outfit—well, that’s a recipe for a very bad day. I learned that for some choices in life, you should make them on your own, not ask for an opinion from every single person you trust.   

At the new school, standing out—the exact opposite of my greatest goal in life—became my new normal. I felt that I had so many disadvantages—freckles, my unforgettable outfit on the first day, and just the mere fact of being the new kid in school. But I believed that the most unfair part of it all was that I could no longer speak as freely as I used to, since my dialect stood out like a sore thumb in every conversation. I resolved to not speak unless I was spoken to, which left me feeling suppressed, since I couldn’t fully express myself. My reservedness earned me the moniker of “the quiet girl.” Of all the names the school kids called me, this one stung the most because it made me feel so small.  

At home, I spent a lot of time watching TV, just so that I didn’t have to think about my school life. I’d flip through the channels and start watching whatever was playing. One day, I turned on the TV, and there was a man sitting on a bench next to a woman. And he said, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” I didn’t understand most of the dialogue in the movie as I was still learning English as a second language, but I immediately understood this line. For the next two hours, I watched in awe as the man went on adventures and adopted new identities without worrying about how others perceived him. I decided that I wanted to be like him.  

After finishing the movie, I had a mission: to replace my identity as the quiet girl with something else. Anything else, really. But I didn’t have quite a lot to be known for. I wasn’t one of the artistic kids. I wasn’t one of the sporty kids. I wasn’t even the “pink jacket girl” anymore because I had stopped wearing it. I didn’t know what I wanted to be known for, but I did know that I no longer wanted to be the quiet girl.  

Then, one day, one of our teachers asked us to bring an item to the class that represented who we were. I thought and I thought, but I couldn’t figure out what my item could be. When I got home that afternoon, I saw my mom in the kitchen peeling potatoes. I asked her what they were for, and she said that she was making potato salad for dinner. I offered to help her and started peeling the potatoes. I also recounted how I felt like an outsider in this new school. My mom listened empathetically and asked if she should speak to the principal. I didn’t want her to intervene because I knew that middle school social dynamics were largely immune to outside forces—guided by their own rules, as any other sovereign country. By the end of our conversation, I realized that I had peeled too many potatoes. I was so carried away that I hadn’t noticed how much work my hands were doing. When I looked at all the potatoes, I was suddenly struck by an idea: what if I brought potato salad as something that represented me? It was a perfect representation of who I was. There were so many different aspects of my personality—the weird, the awkward, the soft, the hard—but all of them came together to make me who I was. When I shared the idea with my mom, she immediately said yes. We went on peeling, chopping, and mixing the potatoes well into the evening.  

The next morning, I put the large container of potato salad in a big, opaque bag. At school, everyone looked at my bag with increasing curiosity. When the clock struck 9:00am, our class finally began. Ms. Bayar asked us to put our items in front of us on the table, to show what we brought and explain the reasoning behind the choice. I saw that each of my classmates brought something different, from sports jerseys to ballet shoes to a violin. When my turn came, I finally removed the large container from its bag and put it in front of me. People gasped and giggled. When my teacher asked why I brought potato salad, I responded that the different ingredients of the potato salad contribute to its flavour, just like the different aspects of my personality. Ms. Bayar praised me for the creativity of my idea, and everyone went quiet. After the class was over, I put the salad at the front of the room for everyone to eat. Everyone seemed to like it, as it was gone soon.  

After that incident, something changed. I was no longer the quiet girl; I was the potato salad girl. People changed how they saw me. More importantly, I changed how I saw myself. I decided to embrace the parts of me that were not always liked by others. I realized that no matter how I was perceived, I was the one who ultimately decided who I was. I found the courage to sit with my classmates in the school cafeteria, raise my hand in class more often, and wear my pink jacket again. Like the man in the movie, I also came up with a line of my own: Life is like a bowl of potato salad; you never know what you’re gonna get.

Saran Davaajargal is a writer and editor based in Toronto. Saran is a graduate of Humber’s Professional Writing and Communications postgraduate program.

Image: Sweet and Sour (Jasmine Cowan, 2022)

Edited for publication by Abby Coutinho, as part of the Creative Book Publishing program.

HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation.