She Is Her Own Hero

By Ashley Cetnarowski

When I was in 2nd grade, I thought failure meant missing the basket in gym class. My cheeks would flush red, tears welling up as I realized my missed shot meant my team had to start over…again. I began to dread gym class, convinced that one mistake made me the weakest link. I got used to being picked last.

In 11th grade, failure looked like scoring below 75% in a class. I was dual enrolled, taking college courses while still in high school, and anything less than a C meant no college credit. I passed, but only by 2%. On paper, it was enough. In my mind, it wasn’t. 

By 12th grade, failure was not making the singles spot on my tennis team. My last chance to play singles, and I lost by two points in a single elimination match. I walked off the court with my brand new racket in my hand and tears in my eyes, haunted by the loss for the rest of the season as I returned to doubles.

But none of those moments compared to what came at 19: failing out of my dream college. The dialogue that I had become all too familiar with swooped back in. I’m not good enough. I’ll never be able to do this. I am a failure.

It’s taken time, distance, and growth to see things differently. I’ve come to realize: failure isn’t the outcome. It’s not the missed basket, the final score, or the GPA. Failure is letting fear win. Failure is not even trying. Failure is letting yourself be defined by your setbacks.

And that brings me to something I wish I had known all along, something I’ve come to believe deep in my core:

She is her own hero.

Despite all the fairytales, there is no knight in shining armor. No perfectly timed rescue. No one coming to put the broken pieces back together or rewrite the story for you.

It took me five years to understand why: because that person could only ever be me.

The realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

At the time, I was working as a long term substitute teacher with 6th and 7th graders. One day, I was asked to plan and execute a lesson on setting goals and rising from failure. I pulled together stories of well known figures who had faced setbacks, such as Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Lucille Ball, and Michael Jordan. Icons who had failed publicly, yet pushed forward anyway.

As I taught that weeklong lesson, something shifted in me. Talking to my students about “failing forward,” I realized I wasn’t just teaching them. I was teaching myself, too. I opened up to them, admitting I was still learning, still figuring it out; something no adult had ever done to me before. Together, we created SMART goals, shared our setbacks, and imagined the futures we wanted to build.

Just one month later, I found myself living what I had taught. I enrolled full-time at Saginaw Valley State University. As a nontraditional, first generation college student, I knew from my experience that it wouldn’t be easy. But I also knew, thanks to that lesson and my students, that it was possible.

 
I finished my first semester this past April and found myself on the President’s List with a 4.0 GPA. To me, this was more than an academic achievement: it was a personal victory. It was proof that the girl who once believed she wasn’t good enough, who thought failure defined her, had reclaimed her story. I chose to no longer be defined by my failures; instead, I am defined by my perseverance. 

I became the hero I was looking for.

Once you realize your strength, once you see what you’re capable of, you don’t stop there; you start reaching back to help others see it in themselves. With this realization over the course of the semester came a new mission: to help others see that they can be their own heroes, too. That fire, that fight, that belief is not just for me anymore. It’s for every person, young or old, who feels like they’ve fallen too far, failed too many times, or been told they’ll never make it.

That mission to remind others of their power is what I now carry with me every day in my work as Miss Heart of Michigan.

And make no mistake: the work is just beginning.

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Ashley Cetnarowski is the current Miss Heart of Michigan (MI). You can follow her on her title's Instagram.

This is her first guest blog for Section 36 Forevers.