Hello.
My name is Chyna Jackson-White.
C-H-Y-N-A.
Jackson.
Hyphen.
White.
And for the longest time,
I thought that little line in the middle was a pause.
A break.
A separation.
A line saying,
“Pick a side.”
Jackson on one end.
White on the other.
Sophia Jackson.
Danny White.
Mom on one side.
Dad on the other.
Me?
Somewhere in the middle.
Trying to figure out where I fit.
Trying to figure out who I am.
Trying to figure out why everybody keeps asking teenagers what they’re going to become
when half the time we’re still figuring out who we’ve been.
See, that’s the thing about growing up.
Everybody wants answers.
What college?
What career?
What major?
What plan?
What future?
What next?
What next?
What next?
And I don’t know about y’all,
but sometimes I can’t even figure out what I’m eating for dinner.
Yet somehow I’m supposed to map out the next forty years.
And maybe that’s why being a teenager feels like standing in a hallway
where every door is labeled IMPORTANT
and everybody keeps asking why you haven’t chosen one yet.
Go left.
Go right.
Be this.
Not that.
Speak up.
Be humble.
Stand out.
Fit in.
Be yourself.
But not too much.
And that’s exhausting.
Because sometimes I think we’re all walking around carrying labels
we never asked for.
The smart one.
The loud one.
The athlete.
The quiet one.
The troubled one.
The popular one.
The failure.
The success.
And people hand us these labels
like name tags at a conference.
As if human beings are that easy to summarize.
As if a whole life can fit on a sticker.
As if who we are at sixteen
is who we’ll be forever.
But then I started thinking about my name.
About that hyphen.
That little line.
That tiny mark people barely notice.
And I realized something.
A hyphen isn’t a stop sign.
It’s a bridge.
A connector.
A reminder that two things can exist at the same time.
That I can carry my mother’s name,
Sophia Jackson,
and my father’s name,
Danny White,
without having to choose between them.
That I can be confident and still be nervous.
Strong and still need help.
Growing and still be enough.
A hyphen doesn’t ask you to pick a side.
It teaches you how to hold both.
And maybe that’s what life is.
A giant hyphen.
A connection between who we were
and who we’re becoming.
Between mistakes and lessons.
Between fear and courage.
Between the version of yourself everybody expects
and the version of yourself you’re still discovering.
Because none of us are finished.
We’re all in the middle.
All hyphens.
All becoming.
All connecting pieces together
trying to create a story that makes sense.
So let me introduce myself again.
My name is Chyna Jackson-White.
C-H-Y-N-A.
Daughter of Sophia Jackson.
Daughter of Danny White.
A girl who spent years thinking the hyphen divided her
only to realize
it was holding her together.
Thank you.
