Jar of Keys

Sena Chang ’24 explores the concept of mindset—one of the six competencies in ASIJ’s Portrait of a Learner—through a personal essay.

The keys I have collected far outnumber the doors I have opened.

At age seven, cherubic eyes may widen at the sight of a stuffed animal, or perhaps a multicolored lollipop. Yet somehow, my black irises did not follow this unsaid tradition; instead, they lit up at the sight of old keys, rusty and worn out from years of use. My delicate fingers served as a harsh contrast to the jumbled keys placed in them; for years my affinity for old keys would persist.

Any one of these keys may have been passed through the hands of several family generations, yet its unique teeth perfectly grab onto the keyhole of only a single door in the world. In retrospect, perhaps it was this knowledge that ignited fireworks of glee through my veins whenever my eyes caught sight of a key. It could lead to a lace-covered palace, the Louvre, Lincoln’s house—the vast possibilities extended exponentially. Tied to the deepest chambers of my heart was an eternal connection to each of these keys—only when I discovered the rich histories engraved into these individual keys did I finally let go. I have found one hundred keys, and each has led to another door I have yet to open.

It was my obsession with orderliness that sent me on the very edge of chaos, a word foreign to my dictionary of seven years. I had been cruising along a railroad track repetitive and predictable, its linear path stabilizing my agitated young mind. Yet the keys housed in my mason jar sent me swerving right and left on my homely railroad; its jagged, unique edges that have passed too many fingers for my mind to comprehend clashed with the monochrome, linear backdrop of my life. Back then, there stood an answer next to every question; when I asked my keys where their houses lay, they just replied in a foreign language of ridges and curves. It was perhaps an innate behavior, this obsession with perfection.

I was at war at five years old. I was at war with a deadly creature that threatened to snatch me from my dreams and wreak havoc. When the clock struck nine, its spindly fingers would reach up from underneath every so slowly, creating an element of dreadful suspense. It

fiercely roamed the fortress under my bed, casting shadows across my room. It was a creature that walked the bedroom floors of every child—the monster under my bed.

Fire-hot blood rushing through my veins, I trembled underneath my sheets with my heart threatening to burst out of my body. A pool of fear gathered in my gut, paralyzing me until I was a lifeless statue lying on my bed.

It was this exact feeling of paralyzing fear that greeted me when my socially inept middle school self was faced with her greatest enemy—public speaking. As one may predict, a migration of butterflies would get released into my stomach at the mere thought of it; for as long as I had known, I had fulfilled the role of “silent, reserved girl” every consecutive year in the dramatic, theatrical politics of middle school.

Yet behind the expressionless mask always hanging on my face was a never-ending universe of literature and philosophies acquired through books, art, and music. With my mouth tightly shut, my brain blasted ideas through the silence, entertaining me to the fullest. Yet when I sought to voice these colorful, vivid ideas, out came a tumble of gibberish and stutters. So fluent was I in the language of thoughts, yet so awkward and unhappy I was in the language of conversation.

My words felt worthless as if they were something to be tossed around and discarded. Soon I learned to stitch my mouth closed, believing that the world did not want to hear—it did not consider me worthy enough to listen to.

The foundations of self-esteem upon which man holds himself were as fragile as a china doll for me, my confidence shattering into a million shards by one incorrect answer or a single piece of criticism. To fail this daunting speech in front of everyone seemed absolutely catastrophic to me. Failure, to me, further validated the sense of unintelligence and inadequacy I constantly felt towards myself.

As I walked to the front of the class, a deep crimson blush tinted my cheeks, heat rushing up to my face and ears. A thousand hands were clamped around my windpipe, rendering me unable to form any words. I opened my mouth, my brain dissolving into a million different entities. And there I stood, an actress waiting to put on the greatest show on Earth.

As my mouth opened, the tightly wound knots of ideas in my brain would ever so slightly loosen up, giving way for the wave of words I would speak. To me, my works of writing, art, and music are more than fancy, eloquent pieces of art, but a slice of the universe of ideas I have yet to present to the world. And here I was, being able to speak these truths with confidence and zest, overcoming the fears of embarrassment and awkwardness.

It was on that classroom floor that I was able to express the ideas my lips often swallowed back, the truths that my mouth had never uttered. I spoke with true conviction, with emotion and expression. My mind, once a caged bird flying rampant in its cage, I was now flying.

Years later, my fingers now journey across the jagged edges of each collected key, trying, somehow, to find the location of the house it belonged to. Perhaps there was something inscribed within the hot alkaline metals it had been molded from—a final fingerprint, or a family crest of some sort. I silently roll my own key between my palms before night, only to realize that I’ve finally become content in my jar—one filled with unsaid conversations and social ineptitude— itself a home to my misdirection and wandering.

In times of adolescence, we are often keys waiting in a mason jar, the search for our individual doors never-ending. The jagged, rough edges of our keys itself are compasses to our identities—our final doors and destinations—but it constantly seems that we are in the wrong galaxy, in the wrong era, and in the hands of the wrong person. We constantly long to find a single door whose ridges match ours, riddled with the notion that a perfect door awaits. Riddled with the notion that a perfect girl exists. Yet all one needs is purpose—purpose that a seven-year-old may give to her teddy bear or perhaps, a jar of keys.

That is to say, that I have become a being capable of embracing life’s obstacles with might.

That is to say, that I have come to the realization that failure is a temporary roadblock to the wonders that wait ahead.

That is to say, that I am a key waiting patiently within a jar of many others, ready to unlock all the unknowns in the world.

My mindset has established the Sena I am now, molding the ridges of my key to fit any door, to combat any situation come my way. Doors of opportunity come my way, I am now ready to venture out of my jar and unlock them.