Venn Diagram

One Night Stand | Lily Kolakowski | Collage

Venn Diagram 4, by Margot Kaye

I vaguely recall being first introduced to Venn diagrams in 2nd grade. My meager understanding of them still sits with me today. Obviously, I’ve used them more over the years, but my general use of them has remained the same: to compare and contrast, or to find similarities and differences. Recently though, I’ve been finding myself placing myself into these charts. Me and my traits in one bubble, with someone in my life crammed into the other. The middle displaying our overlapping characteristics. I typically portray the circle opposite mine in a much more glorifying manner. Lowering myself to be who I see myself as. Raising my opposer to have achieved goals I wish to reach myself. The midsection doesn’t have much substance other than surface traits. These diagrams are the ones that inhabit my mind most often. Occasionally, I generate diagrams in my head that I’m exponentially more ashamed of. These ones paint me to be the superior one. I despise these cases. They fill me with guilt endlessly. At any rate, these are nothing compared to the way I feel towards the truly accurate Venn diagrams, the ones that I know deep down honestly portray me in comparison to my peers. It’s not the grades or looks that sting, it’s more the innate abilities –whether it be something as trivial as capacity to remember facts, to something as significant as mental health. I know it’s dumb of me to act like people that appear “perfect” have no issues, but it’s hard when you see people functioning in a way you can’t. I feel very strongly that if I’m going to negatively compare myself to people, it should be in regards to things I have control over, not the things I don’t. But then again, I am the one imagining the diagrams. In fact, an eraser could simply take away all of the restraints of the chart, leaving it as one misshapen bubble. If only the ranks weren’t in ink.