If you had told me at the end of middle school the person I would become now, a mere four years later, I wouldn’t have believed you. And I don’t mean that in any kind of massive egotism, but merely in how big of a personality shift I have gone through. I was once a shy T-shirt-wearing introvert and now I consider myself to be a sociable, three-piece-suit-wearing extrovert. I am quite proud of the change I have gone through and, in no small measure, I think that coming to terms with my identity of being gay helped with that transition.
In my middle-school years, I couldn’t really be out and proud with who I was. I was frequently teased by a number of people who were under the assumption that I was gay — without them even knowing it was true. And because of this teasing, I didn’t really think too much about if I was gay or not because I didn’t want to give the bullies the satisfaction of being right. And while I’d had these feelings for ages, I didn’t really know how to confront them. It wasn’t until the summer after I left middle school that I was able to finally come to terms with myself and with my family that I was gay. Naturally, when I entered high school, I was nervous. I was nervous that I would be confronted with the same teasing, even more so now that it was official that I was gay. Instead, what I found was a loving, caring and great environment for me to be out.
If I can think of the best lesson I have learned these past four years, and to keep in mind for when I’m going to college, is to be nobody other than your true self. There are more than 7 billion people on this planet, all of whom have different names, thoughts and identities, but there is only one you. And as a person, you only have so much life on this planet and only have so much time to be who you want — so you shouldn’t be sad and you shouldn’t waste time being somebody else. You are fine as you are.
It’s funny: So many people, from what I’ve heard, probably don’t come out of the closet until they go to college; yet, by the time I go to college, I will have been out for about four years. And within that time, I have been a member of my school’s Gay Straight Alliance, participated in Pride events in the LGBT community and even helped organize the city’s first youth Pride. I’m curious how many people at my college might go through a similar transformation of identity as I did, and I’m even more curious how my mind will undoubtedly change during my own four years at college. I can only hope so that, at whatever college I do decide to attend, I will be allowed to explore and discover myself the same way I was able to do in high school.
I find that reflection is a powerful tool for being able to see the good and the bad of your past and to use that in preparation for your future. I hope that as I go forward, I can take all the lessons I have learned both inside and outside the school to be able to forge myself into the man I want to become. And I hope that others my own age or anybody really can take the lessons from the past and move on to the future — particularly at this time between high school and college, as we transition from one large part of our lives to another — and let us hope it is for the better.