There once was a girl named Claire, who had blonde, silk hair and eyes as blue as the sky. She was a gorgeous girl, but she didn’t believe it. She compared herself to her classmates and always felt different. She pictured herself as an alien, walking among humans.
While girls her age shopped at stores like Hollister and Aeropostale, she was fine with welcoming, friendly simplicity of Target. She barely knew any of the complex words they spoke, which made her feel like an unintelligent being. She just liked sticking with simplicity, is all.
       She rarely watched TV, but she had an undying fascination for computers. Though, unlike most people, she never bothered stepping near instant messaging. Her parents worried about her as she’d sit at her virtual portal to other worlds for hours and hours a day, but she was only learning more. As she researched new information, her mind gobbled it up. The gears in her brain frantically turned as her imagination ran wild – creating interesting characters and complex stories, then quickly scribbling it down on to paper.
       One day in school, she accidentally dropped one of her loose leaf papers that held a story she was just beginning to write on it. Unfortunately, one of her classmates picked it up, and he ended up telling everyone – and they didn’t like the story. Throughout the day she overheard classmates snickering and staring at her. She was mortified when she discovered what had happened. She ran up to her room as soon as she got home and cried to herself, denying her parents access to enter. She just wanted to be alone. That was her lifelong wish.
       Somewhere in her room, she found a glass jar leftover from Easter jelly beans. Immediately she came up with an idea! It would become her ‘feelings jar’. She would bottle up her feelings so no one would know. No one would laugh at her if they had nothing to laugh about. No one would know anything about her stories, or her love interests, or how she thought about other people, or even how she thought about herself. It seemed like the perfect plan.
       For years she kept at it. The young girl quietly kept to herself, shutting everyone else out. But it was not a failure. By being alone, her imagination grew and grew! By the time she was twelve, the jar was almost full. However, her parents and teachers were troubled at how silent she was. They wanted her to be more social with other kids, but she just ignored them.
      One afternoon, Claire tried to put one of her feelings towards a boy into the jar. He was her classmate, and his name was Christopher Ornie. He was the sweetest boy she had ever met. Even though she never talked to him, she observed what he was like just by sitting quietly. But the feeling wouldn’t go in. She tried to place it in the jar, but it wouldn’t fit. She attempted to push it in with all her might. Suddenly, cracks began to form on the jar, scattering across it. Soon it shattered into a million glass pieces, her years’ worth of secrets and emotions floated out of her window. She grabbed at them but obtained none. “Please come back! Please!” She had cried to them, her lifelong friends. She couldn’t believe it. The world knew everything now. Her hopes, her dreams, her stories, her crush, her insecurity, and so much more. She was going to be like an exhibit at the museum.
      She fell to her knees and cried. Her pale face became stained with tears and her blue eyes were surrounded by a pool of red. “Gone,” She would tell herself as she sobbed. “They’re all gone…” School would be a nightmare from now on. She’d be laughed at, just like she was years ago. She dreaded the feeling. She had promised herself it would never happen again, but her jar betrayed her.
      But when she stopped crying, she actually felt…good. There was a new warmth in her heart, and she felt different. Different than her old different self. Almost like a new Claire. Releasing her feelings had lifted the great weight of pressure and isolation off of her shoulders.
     As she went to school the next day, it seemed she was almost glowing. People stopped to stare, but not because she was weird. No, it was because she was…smiling. Smiling truthfully after the first time in years. People were amazed. She began to talk more, and even if she spoke awkwardly at times, they didn’t mind. All of her thoughts about others had been erased once she had actually started talking to them. She didn’t need the feeling jar anymore. Her friends were her feeling jar, now.
     Sometimes it’s good to express yourself. Not everyone should be bottled up into their own little world all of the time. Though other times, it’s okay to keep things to yourself. People deserve the right to have their own secrets, and their own thoughts. Everyone had a voice in the world that can be heard…they just have to use it.