I never did well in school. I didn’t like maths, I always ended up arguing with the biology teacher, and somehow my mum was always being called in about my academic performance because, even though I behaved well and didn’t cause trouble, my grades kept falling.

Gradually, everyone came to the conclusion that I simply wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t add up - I still can’t - I couldn’t solve physics equations, I didn’t understand the function of the mitochondria, and I couldn’t play volleyball without breaking my glasses or hitting myself in the face more often than I hit the ball.

And, reluctantly, but deeply, for a while, I believed they were right because how do you explain to yourself that you don’t have to have it all figured out when the rest of the world seems to think you do?

Don’t get me wrong, my 'it' girls, I don’t blame my 13-year-old self for desperately trying to fit in; when I think of her, I feel like hugging her and slapping her because I don’t want to steal her innocence or break her heart, but I know that her attempts to be good at something will eventually leave her tired and disappointed.

I say this because at 21, I realised I never stopped trying. Trying to be the good lawyer (spoiler alert: that didn’t happen), the good intern, the good dancer, the good hostess, the good granddaughter, and an endless number of “the good” that made me feel suffocated because being good no longer seemed enough: I had to be perfect.

And after looking in the mirror and not recognising myself, realising I could no longer look at myself with love, and feeling my voice break every time I was forced to make a decision, I understood that I always wanted to be good for others, but never for myself.

I think that’s why, when I told my dad that maybe law wasn’t for me, his only response was, “And what do you want?”. I still remember the lump in my throat when I didn’t answer him. That’s when I realised I was living lives that had once been mine but had been left behind.

Because I am not the times I abandoned those I used to call friends, the tears stained on my chemistry notebook, my mum’s disappointed look, the rude replies on WhatsApp, or the many mistakes I made on my 15th birthday.

I am not the occasions when, in my rush to do everything right, I ended up making mistakes, and I don’t want to be those moments when I was more cruel than Regina George just because I thought it would make me better than other girls.

I think the hardest part of growing up is understanding that sometimes, in other people's stories or our own, we can also be the villain, and that doesn’t necessarily make us bad: it reminds us that we need to learn and make mistakes in order to grow.

That’s why I feel incapable of judging my 13-year-old self. Because, in a way, I was the biggest villain in her life. I demanded perfection, care, and meticulousness when the only thing I really owed her was the eternal nostalgia of a lovestruck teenager (which I finally learned to cherish as a treasure).

And so, almost without realising it, I discovered why life seemed so heavy: labels are too heavy to carry in the back pocket of those jeans that I have considered my favourite for years. And my biggest mistake was limiting myself to being what I thought others wanted me to be, what I couldn’t forgive myself for, and the fear of never being enough for myself, instead of understanding that I am really the times I hugged, laughed, said “I love you” without regret, rewatched The Princess Diaries, went to therapy, and loved life. Or when I felt like I was in a romantic movie, right at the moment when a pop song plays and the protagonist has an epiphany, making us understand she has never been so happy.

I am those moments when I don’t live for yesterday or for others and make peace with the fact that I don’t actually need to be the one who factors in three seconds, knows the entire periodic table, and never makes mistakes.

I just have to know how to love, forgive (including myself), dream, be passionate, let go of the rush, and understand that I am good enough to be.

That is enough, and more than enough.