#sofie sheldon

Home Sweet Home: The Struggles of a Bi-Coastal Teen Who Traded Conformity for Authenticity

“Pretty view, right?” Mandy and I peer over the rolling Berkeley hills beyond the trees to see the skyscrapers of San Francisco. We can see everything from up here-- People’s Park in Berkeley, the Golden Gate Bridge, even the town we grew up in, Danville. Mandy comes here once every few weeks with her friends. I wish I had a view like this back home in Connecticut -- something to remind me how small my world and my problems are —so small that I can cover them up with the stub of my thumb.

It’s dark as we drive back down the winding road; we pass houses tucked into the hills,that look like they’re slowly getting swallowed by the cliff. Many are decorated with twinkling Christmas lights for the holiday season. We shift into our daydreams, asking each other which one we want to buy, how many dogs we’d have, where our kids would go to school. I imagine buying every house on that hill, moving all my friends from Connecticut in with me, and finally showing them what makes California so amazing.

It’s been five years since I moved from California to Darien, Connecticut, and every time I come back to my California soil I feel like I’m stepping out of a fog and into fresh air. I return at least twice a year for vacations and family events, and each time I realize as different as the two coasts are, they are becoming more and more similar to me.  

“You don’t know how many times I got ‘the elevator’ the first day of school,” my older sister Alexa and I can laugh at observations like this now that we’re on the other side of being the awkward “new girls from California.”  “The elevator” was our term for the up-and-down gaze we sometimes used to get from kids passing us in the school hallways. They didn’t know how to react to the California girls wearing Rainbow flip flops and ditching the Vineyard Vine polos for the Billabong tees. The first weeks of school I noticed every little way that set me apart. Girls in high pony tails wearing Sugarlips tank tops breezed by me in tight cliques like schools of bubbly fish. I would trade precious sleep for mirror time, getting just the right wave in my hair. That first day of school when I looked at myself in the mirror I liked what I saw: my trendy denim romper with brown faux leather belt and ankle boots—  just the right amount of Bohemian chic. My square, dark brown glasses perfected the look. I felt so awesomely confident stepping out of the car and onto the curb that morning, but by lunchtime I couldn’t explain why I was circling the cafeteria with my lunch in one hand, water bottle in the other, avoiding eye contact and praying for the bell to ring. When it did, I ran to the bathroom, crying.

My parents said they chose Darien as our new town because they thought it felt a lot like Danville, California, but from my perspective the two could not have been more different. The people seemed standoffish and unfriendly, and the moody, unpredictable weather was horrible. Despite being just a 45-minute train ride from New York City, it seemed the only thing to do was go to the beach where the snack bar sold pizza and potato cones, a new delicacy I’d never tried in California. Our enthusiasm soon deflated when we got to Weed Beach and found that unlike the surf on our sunny California beaches, there were are no waves on the sound, and the water was a murky green, with what was rumored to be sewage overflow. There were a few young kids playing on the playground and some ladies in their tennis whites on the courts, but where were the kids like us? We soon learned that the “best” beaches were at the private beach clubs, where the locals pulled up in their skiffs and drank smoothies with striped straws. Here was another stark contrast: there are no beach clubs in California because all beaches are public. The rigid, elitist, sheltered attitude of my new town felt like a grey cloud following me everywhere.

Little did I realize the pessimistic, gloomy outlook I had is common for the majority of teens, whether they relocate or not. Once a child hits middle school, hormones are exponentially increased and the body’s androgen levels increase twenty to sixty percent, which can cause side effects such as risky experimental behavior and more extreme emotions. My sister and I didn’t realize this, of course, so we just blamed the move for every negative thing. Our struggles to adjust to our new town were legitimately challenging, but even more so as teens with raging hormones that often caused the ground to shift beneath us like a 7.0 earthquake.

Assimilation is the name of the game in middle school and it didn’t take me long to figure out my new school, Middlesex, was no exception. The halls buzzed with little lemmings who all dressed the same, talked about their club team achievements and college ambitions still six years away. One of my first friends had an SAT tutor at age 13. Meanwhile, my friends in California were snap chatting who was sporting the latest fashion trends (hair tinsel and henna tattoos) and whose big sister could be bribed to give them a ride to the next concert.

So I had a decision to make: ditch the funky glasses and stop bringing my veggie wraps to school in a brown paper bag? Join a team, and try to fit in? Get myself a Vineyard Vines polo? I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to conform.

I knew I could never keep up with the uber athletes in Darien. Unlike the rest of Darien, I hadn’t been playing lacrosse since first grade, and the first time I picked up a field hockey stick was that fall in PE (in 35-degree weather). So I decided to try out for the Middlesex spring musical, The Sound of Music. I couldn’t believe how many kids showed up for the auditions — over one hundred, and even more surprising, I wasn’t nervous. By then, I had been in the Middlesex trenches for several months and I had that “nothing to lose” attitude. I remember what I was wearing the day the cast list was posted: red pencil jeans, my dad’s old sweater and my signature boots. I felt like I grew three inches when I saw my name at the top of the cast list: “Sofie Sheldon, Maria.” That was the moment I stopped trying so hard to fit in, and gave myself permission to be myself. I became Maria, the outlier. By the time the play was over, nobody cared what I was wearing because they accepted me for who I was. My life became a lot easier as soon as I stopped worrying about conforming, and I let myself become my authentic self.

A teenager’s search for identity often gets lost in that battle between conforming and being unique. For kids who relocate and have to start fresh, we are forced to question our identities. Without my other friends around to make those group decisions about what we were going to dress up together as for Halloween, or what extra curricular activities we would sign up for together, I started to really make my own choices and form my own individual identity. I grew up exponentially those first few years. It was like a daily battle, pushing through the urge to conform, but I came through it more authentic, more confident. Even more important: I am willing to take risks without fear of what others might think. Whether on the east coast or the west coast, kids want to be surrounded by those who are familiar, who prop them up, encourage them, love them. Some people might refer to this as “the bubble.” Bubbles exist in Darien and Danville, and they are hard to break out of because they are comfortable and safe. When you are living in your comfortable bubble, you find safety in conformity, maybe taking baby steps toward individuality here and there like wearing red van tennis shoes instead of white. The “bubble” can be isolating, often causing people to overlook the new kid in town. Why reach out and invite new people into your bubble, when you have all the friends and love you need already? But when forced out of the bubble — the comfort zone — and given no choice but to find your own way, important survival tactics are ready to kick-in. Survival for me meant becoming more open, more self-reliant, and more confident. While the challenges that came from moving across country as a teen seemed overwhelming at times, these same challenges became important opportunities for self discovery and self expression, opportunities many of my peers will never experience as they head off as legacies to the small liberal arts colleges their parents attended.

East or west, no coast is better than the other. I now appreciate the colorful foliage in the fall, and the deer who poke their way across blankets of snow in my backyard. I found the authentic people, and forged lifelong friendships. Sometimes I drive out to the beach at night with a friend, it’s only a few minutes away from my house. On a moonlit night I can see the lights of Long Island across the sound, the glittering horizon so small I can cover it up with the stub of my thumb. I never realized until recently how much this view reminds me of the lookout over the Bay from the Berkeley hills. I guess I have this place to remind me how small my problems are in Darien, and how similar and close my two homes really are.

A few weeks ago I decided to meet my friend on the L Train and check out the renowned Flea Market in Brooklyn. You can always find unique pieces at flea markets, and since this one was in the quirky neighborhood Williamsburg, I knew I couldn’t pass it up.

To my luck it was a gorgeous day with barely a cloud in the sky. The lot where they set up the shops is right on the water, and you get a priceless view of the Manhattan skyline.

Half the fun of going to flea markets is digging through all the stuff to find the real treasures. I dug around and found this really cool soap tin…

And even and unopened champagne bottle.

There were many shops selling vintage jackets of all eras, specifically 80s sport coats which are totally in the rad. I was tempted to buy one, but my mother still has her fuscia one from ‘83, so I’m all set.

This jacket would look so chic with cropped black pants and sleek black boots.

I was mainly on a mission to find myself artwork to hang in my freshly-painted room. There were many stalls with selections from artwork from children's books to maps to cooking recipes. I bought a print of a diagram of a persimmon from a Department of Agriculture fieldbook from 1913. My grandfather grows persimmons, and I really love the rust color of the fruit.

One “stall” was actually a teardrop trailer that was furnished with racks of clothing. I asked if the trailer was for sale, but sadly it wasn’t. I fell in love when I saw it.

We found stunning butterfly terrariums...

And also a super cute baby:

So all in all, you can find anything you want and everything you need at the flea market.

Happy Hunting!

Homecoming Bonfire, September 2015

My first DARTicle! Woo!

It was that time of year again at Darien High School when the hallways were occupied by a new flock of students who flew all the way from China. The group of girls from Shanghai was definitely excited to be in suburban Connecticut. The exchange students were all amazed at actually being able to visibly see the stars, and fascinated by the cafeterias vast array of utensils. It was like taking a kid to a candy store only instead of candy there were plastic forks and knives…as well as the occasional straw wrapper.

In the beginning, all the students were all so extremely polite; I wondered if I was ever going to have a deeper conversation than the weather. Our exchange group automatically separated into two different groups: the Chinese students and the Darien students.

But then, at some point through the field trips and activities, something clicked. Instead of being a group of kids from Darien and a group of kids from Shanghai, we became a group of friends. I realized this transition sitting on the bus back from D.C.: the student sitting in front of me was giggling and blushing while she talked to a Darien student she has a crush on, the girl sitting next to me was learning what a knock-knock joke was, and a mix of students were playing a confusing and hilarious bilingual game of apples-to-apples.

I knew then that we were all friends. You just need that one moment that makes everyone fit snug like a puzzle. I was leaning back, looking at the whole picture.

Sofie Sheldon with Aria Jiao an exchange student from Shanghai 

Americans don’t usually think of China as the number one place they want to do an exchange program with, because it is so different from our culture. Most teenagers are more interested in European nations, like France or Spain, were they hope to live out some sort of Audrey Hepburn fantasy lifestyle for a few weeks, riding around on mopeds and chain-smoking with the natives. But what people don’t realize is how similar our countries are. We all love to laugh, to hang out with friends, stress out over exams; and be a teenager.

The world is so, so small after you get to know someone from a different part of it. My sister, who’s studying in Miami, and her boyfriend, who lives in Spain, are coming to our house for Thanksgiving. My friend from London and I are having lunch in NYC next weekend.  I’m going to be going to my cousin’s wedding in Germany. In December, I’ll be visiting all my friends back in California. In six months, I’ll be going halfway around the world to see one of my best friends, Tan Xinyue, for three weeks. That’s the whole point of this program: to realize all of the similarities between our two cultures. It’s not to take pictures of the Statue of Liberty, or to buy Beats headphones in NYC, it’s to show how we are all connected; to show how we are all so much closer, so much similar than we seem.