(articles and pictures by alu)
Alex might be a Psychology student with one of the highest grades in her class, but her true love and passion for music shines through.
A closeted musician would be quite an accurate description of this young female who’s afraid of being vulnerable for people to hear.
“I like singing, playing the piano and playing the guitar. I make my own stuff and I have a lot of instrumentals that I make my myself, but I’m afraid to make myself vulnerable by writing words, so i never do anything with it,” says Alex.
That might be the case, but if you’re around Alex enough, you’re definitely going to hear her sing out loud - and she probably doesn’t realize it because it’s natural for her. You might also hear her sing covers on her Instagram page (@alexandra.hex) - but that’s not a reoccurring thing, so far.
”I was showing my sister the other day that I have a bunch of different voice notes and stuff on my phone that I’ve never did anything with, and I’m trying to do that. I’m just trying to be comfortable with expressing myself, but I’m super shy,” says Alex.
A feeling she says she loves is when she’s home alone and she gets to sing “super fucking loud”.
Vulnerability isn’t the only thing that Alex is finding challenging in her everyday life, stereotypes are too.
“If I go to my classes I put on makeup and people look at me, but I have one of the highest marks in my class. I feel like the playing field between men and women has always been, you have to strive three times as hard to get to where a man is for not even trying, or for even people to view you as smart enough, or pretty enough, or whatever. It’s so hard for a woman to just be. You can’t just be a bunch of things at once and be a person,” says Alex.
“Theres this cookie cutter way that women are supposed to be. You’re supposed to be a wife, a mom, you’re supposed to be only sexual and private with like one dude forever. But some women don’t want kids, me being one of them, and every time I say that, everyone is like “well what do you mean?”, “you have to be a mom”, “you’re supposed to be one if you’re a woman”. You’re supposed to be a wife, you can’t be a person who goes out and sleeps with a bunch of dudes if you want to. People have this image of what a woman looks like, or what a woman should or shouldn’t do. I feel like people should just let everyone be whatever the fuck they want to be,” added Alex.
Despite all of the good things a woman can do, or be, she’ll never be enough for society. People will always find a negative thing to say about any little thing. These are truly the things that help destroy women’s perception of life, people, and it can harm their self esteem.
Why not just uplift women instead of just messing with them emotionally and physically?
“Guys are very individual people and women are super in tune with their emotions. I feel like it’s a super individual experience to be a woman in itself but we can all relate,” says Alex.
Although Alex used to struggle with speaking up, she has hope to get past her issues with being vulnerable and finding the push to work more on her music.
