CW2 Midterm

“Unwritten” And Complete

Have you ever felt incomplete? Have you felt like a part of you was missing, like you weren’t who you should be? It was a rough time in my life when I didn’t know what to do. I was being pressured by the fear of humiliation. I was just entering high school, and I was unsure of myself. I wanted to be my own person, an individual, yet I wasn’t. That is, until I heard the song “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield.

When I first came to high school, I was excited. I was going to Governor’s School, I was doing after school clubs, and I was entering into my first relationship with a boy. My life felt complete and cozy, yet it was plain and honestly, boring. I didn’t know who I was. I would see everyone around me in their own cliques; I belonged to a handful. They would all be terrific at one certain thing, and I would be wishing I could do the same. I had grown up being taught to try different things; as I did, I realized that I enjoyed all these different things. I was into fine arts, sports, videogames, rock collecting, reading, you name it. But I started to feel as if I wasn’t excelling at any one thing, unlike the people I saw around me who specialized in one thing and devoted their entire lives to it. I was green with envy of them.

I was also very strict about my school work. I had been a straight “A” student since elementary school, a nerd, if you will. Now in high school and taking advanced classes, I was receiving grades other than an “A.” They weren’t bad grades, but I wasn’t used to them. I would stress over school work so much, I would cry myself to sleep many nights.

I had made many friends the first couple of weeks. As I learned more about them, I realized that they really didn’t fit into any traditional cliques. They were unique. They were optimistic. They were unafraid of what everyone else thought of them. They thought so far outside of the box, they couldn’t find it anymore. I began to idolize them. I wanted to be different, and be proud of it. The only thing was that I was scared to death of what everyone else would think.

One day, on the way home from school, I was listening to the radio. On comes this song with an opening that I thought was cool, so I decided to listen to it. It was “Unwritten.” I really didn’t pay much attention to the words at first, just the music. Then the chorus started in with, “Feel the rain on your skin.” This reminded me of one of my favorite songs at the time, “Come Clean” by Hillary Duff. For that reason alone did I like it. Over the year, I heard it more and more often, and finally I started to actually listen to the words. The song suddenly spoke to me, right to my heart. I felt as if Natasha Bedingfield had written the song just for me.

The first verse starts by singing about something unwritten, and unplanned. This was me on many different levels. I was a writer and had stalled on my novel for many months just because of one writer’s block. I also didn’t know where I wanted to go or do in life. This verse gave me the push I needed to figure that out. I now had a future and was able to start writing again, my whole mind and soul put into my writing.

The second verse sings about breaking tradition and how Natasha can’t live without making mistakes. This hit me hard in telling me that it was okay for me to not always have perfect grades. I still tried my best, but I accepted my limits, and knew I wouldn’t always get an “A.”

The chorus was the heart of the song. This part is what changed my life forever. The first few lines were sung about staring at a blank page and how you should open up the window to let the sun in. I took that as Natasha personally singing to me that I should let my hopes and dreams start to become reality. The next part sings how you are reaching in the distance for something you can’t reach yet. Natasha was now singing to me that if I try hard enough, I could make what I wanted a reality.

The second part of the chorus, the part I had taken for granted earlier, now meant my life to me. Natasha sings how no one else can feel the rain on your skin except for you. She also says, “No one else can speak the words on your lips / drench yourself in words unspoken. Live your life with arms wide open / Today is where your book begins / The rest is still unwritten.”

In just those few lines, Natasha gave me instruction on how to fix my life. I realized that I had to speak for myself, and experience for myself. I couldn’t take someone else’s words or experiences and say I had done it or said it. I had to do it for myself. I realized that I needed to be open and just be myself. It was okay for me not to be perfect in anything or have everyone accept me. I needed to accept myself.

After I had taken Natasha’s message and chained it to my heart forever, I started to change. I became like the friends that I idolized. I became an individual. I stood out and did not care. I chose my own style of fashion and felt like a supermodel, wearing bohemian skirts and mismatched earrings. I began writing again, this time, pouring my soul onto the paper, exploring other lives that I had only imagined. I accepted things as they came, including a bad grade every now and then. I was not afraid to be my own person anymore. True, I lost contact with some of the cliques I had earlier been in, but I became fully accepted with my true friends. I fitted in with them perfectly. True, there are still things I need and want to change. True, some old habits still come up and take over. But there is time for that; a lifetime. After all, like Natasha Bedingfield once sung, “Today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwritten.”