Maggie Rose

Audio Narrative Script

9/12/14

My name is Margaret Kathryn Rose, but most people know me best as mrose29. I have 976
friends, 217 followers, and a high of sixty-four likes on an Instagram post. I attend the
prestigious University of Notre Dame, I play soccer and lacrosse, I live the common life of a
teenage girl from a Connecticut suburb. This information is all available on various social media
sites that have come to define my life, but this wasnt always the case. Before I hid behind the
screen of technology, there was one screen that I became very familiar with.
I am five years old with my nose pressed against a screen door, putting just enough pressure to
leave the wire imprints on my nose I always get. My mom sends a stern reminder from behind
me, Maggie youre too young. You can watch, but make sure you stay behind that screen!
Gusts of warm wind hit my face carrying the cheery laughs of my brother and his friends playing
whiffle ball in the yard.
Come out here, what are you doing?
Get out here we miss you!
My dimples grow and my eyes squint shut as the ends of my smile hit the sides of my face. They
want me out there, they want me. The screen of the door was the only thing that stood between
me and where I wanted to be. I was never allowed to cross my barrier and so that is where I
became most comfortable.
As time passed I traded the screen of that door for the screen of a computer. It was my eighth
grade year on a Sunday night and I was blanking staring at a word document. The blinking

cursor begged me to make it move across the page. Keshas latest hit is playing in the
background, but I listen for a quiet buzz and dim light of a smaller screen across the room. My
latest fascination had been delivered two weeks prior by the infamous Santa Clause. He provided
me with a whole new way to communicate with my friends. I was waiting for a name to pop up
on the display. Any name really, just as an excuse to procrastinate a little longer. When the long
awaited buzz came I jumped out of my blinking cursor induced trance and practically fell out of
my chair. I half crawled, half sprinted to the other side of the room, refusing to take the extra two
seconds called for to stand up and walk. It was Grace, my best friend at the time, or so I thought.
Youre not sitting with us next week.
The feeling of my face falling and eyes welling up hit me like a brick wall. All I could muster to
type was three small letters that would help me understand what was going on.
Why?
Maggie dont make me do this. You knew it was coming. Ill see you in school.
In school who I sat with at an eight person lunch table defined my identity. It dictated how I
would dress, how I would act, and who I could even talk to. They were my friends during school,
and who I did activities on the weekend with. Grace and I had sat together at the same table
every day for the past two and a half years. My best friend, the one who always cared, sent the
text that ripped my sense of self away from me. In that moment I was completely and utterly
alone. I didnt know who I was going to sit with at lunch, let alone who I was even allowed to
talk to. I had been so sure of who I was and that comforted was ripped away from me.

I went back to school the next day and I found a new group of people to sit with. I made it
through the year, knowing that eight months later I was moving on to high school, to a fresh
start. I was in a desperate need to find a new sense of comfort and so I turned to my screen.
Building my new screen identity was a process that went layer by layer, piece by piece. Each had
to precisely fit together to complete the puzzle of how I wanted others to see me. I started with
the base layer of creating profiles on all the right sites. I was careful to post the right pictures,
tweet the right things at the right times, make the right comments. Constructing my new image
was easier than I could have imagined. I was able to adapt to a new setting with the change of a
status and the click of a button. My screen became my shield that projects the person that society
tells me I should be. I do not allow myself to cross the barrier of the screen that I have set; I do
not want to experience the familiar feeling of my face falling and my eyes welling up. I continue
to stay behind my screen because this is where I am now most comfortable.