Contrasting Reflections

Contrasting Reflections

One important aspect of my life is my belief that the more positive I present myself to others, the greater the positive and influential impact I can make on the people around me. The way I chose to represent that through pictures is through reflections and contrast between light and dark subjects. This picture, in a literal context, is a flashlight shining through rain. While I think this represents the great idea of being positive through difficult and uncontrolled points in life, I like the idea of how the flashlight affects the rain drops more.

Everyone has days where they just feel down. Imagine one of those days. Maybe it’s raining, maybe it’s dark outside, maybe it’s completely sunny but you still don’t feel happy in the moment. Now imagine someone that you care about telling you how important you are and how much you mean to them, or even a random compliment from someone you’ve never met. That kindness, warmth, and light you feel is their positivity being passed from them to you. My goal is to spread that warmth to as many people as possible.

This sharing of positive light is very important to me for many reasons, the most important being how it affects my relationships with the people around me. One of the most important times in my life that I’ve been able to be a reflection and source of light was an experience that I had in an airport this previous May. It was right before my 15th birthday, and at that airport, being below 15 I had to be escorted by a flight attendant to a waiting room that I was required to stay in before boarding my flight. I had a delay in between my two flights, and I ended up being in that waiting room for over four hours. I almost switched to an earlier flight, but I decided to not deal with that by myself. About halfway through my waiting time (what would’ve been after I had already left had I switched to the previous flight), a young girl walked in with two flight attendants, one speaking to the other, and the other speaking in Spanish to the girl. They dropped her off in the chair across from mine. After about 10 minutes of us sitting in the waiting room, I decided to talk to her. I said hi, and waited for a response before realizing that she had no clue what I was saying. In the little Spanish that I knew from Spanish I, I said hi and introduced myself again. Her face lit up. She told me her name, (which I have changed for privacy reasons) Emily. After explaining to Emily that I only knew some Spanish, she explained slowly that she was from Honduras and had traveled here alone. Now, because we were in the same program, I knew she was either my age or younger. It was scary for me flying home from Florida, much less a whole other country! As we talked I learned that she was escaping Honduras as government protection from human trafficking. She explained that she was going to a rescue immigration center in Florida to stay with her grandmother who she barely knew. She asked to use my phone to call her grandmother, and of course I let her. I couldn’t make out very many words because she was speaking so fast, but I did make out Emily explaining where she was and that she made a friend named Nola Grace. Soon after, the flight attendants brought Emily to her flight and saying goodbye was the last interaction I ever had with her.

Although I wasn’t able to speak fluently or understand every word Emily said, I was able to make an impact on her life to the point of her considering me as a friend. In her first time in America, I was able to make her feel appreciated and cared for with just the interaction of being an intentional listener and a positive light through the fear of being in a new country alone. I know that I didn’t make Emily’s situation perfect, but through reflecting the love and support that I’ve been show, I was able to be a source of light in her life.

Without an effort to be a positive light in the lives of the people you interact with, you can’t make a positive impact on their rainstorm. In any situation, when you are able too, you should shine and help make light reflect off of all the raindrops around you. You never know who needs a little light and how they will reflect that positivity to everyone around them. In the rainstorm of life, reflecting off of the other raindrops is a vital part to making an impact on the community around you. It will always be my motivation in life to be a source of positivity and reflect the positivity of others.