to quote from the opening line a song that kept me going, “This Year” by the Mountain Goats.
When I think about what exactly I just broke free from, a lot of diverse and conflicting memories come into my mind of what happened in the past six years.
I used to swim. I was good. I would use my mind to think a lot during a race: how should I position my body? When should I stop the push off the wall? Do I really have to breathe?
I had fast reflexes and got an extra second on kids by simply reacting to the starting buzzer in a race faster than them.
I also had scoliosis and pectus carinatum. Of course, being in a youth swim league with other twelve, thirteen, and fourteen year olds did little to help in my battle for teenage self-confidence.
Every day at practice or especially during meets when I would be introduced to at least 100+ strangers, I felt the spotlight effect. I started to think about how I looked at all times. How if I twisted my body just so my body would look just a little bit more normal.
I think we all have this strange confliction of feeling like you need to be seen but also hate being seen.
And yet of course little changed how I looked. It was rare when I wouldn’t get snide comments, strange looks, or snickers covered by hands.
I once felt so angry and lost that I considered using a bread knife in the kitchen to shave off the cartilage of my sternum whenever I would come home from practice. Maybe considered is the wrong word: wanted is a little bit better.
I used to think that no one who saw my body would ever want to touch it in a loving or compassionate way.
This is the time period when I developed a severe slouch and forward head posture from hiding myself.
In the seventh grade, I came into Hayfield Secondary School with an already-shot confidence and demented feeling of belonging in the world.
One day I was walking from my final period to the bus outside the school. I heard a barking that sounded like any other white noise from a middle school hallway. Then the tiles came up to meet me.
When I tried to get back up, I felt two burly hands on my back and sneakers on my legs.
I became familiar with the ground this year.
This happened every time this kid saw me. I think the hardest part about him was that I didn’t know his name and I’m sure he didn’t know mine. When he saw me in the hallways and figured he would get away with it, I would have a short conversation with the ground. When there were teachers or security around, he would look at me with his wild eyes and bark a few times.
The same year, during physical education, one of my friends was harassed every day by a different student. The bully in this case would come over to where we were standing and do his best to separate my friend from me, directing him to behind the bleachers.
During a fire drill in this class, I fought back against something for the first time in my life.
My friend and I were going back inside the building. The bully came over to my friend and put his hands around his throat.
Something inside of me clicked. I threw the bully against the red brick school wall and drove my knee into his stomach. He keeled over and didn’t fuck with us again.
The student who would bark at me, however, remained. He was a year older and much bigger than me.
The school year drifted to an end and I drifted further into myself.
Eighth and ninth grades were simply incubation period of loneliness and entertainment addiction. I simply would go to school and come home to play video games or watch movies. I stopped reading and writing for pleasure during this period of my life.
Perhaps there were many parts of myself that had developed to deny pleasure to myself because I’d started to agree with the bullies in how to view myself.
I was a prolific reader before this time. I read the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy, including the Hobbit; The Moon is Down, Robinson Crusoe, Lord of the Flies, Huckleberry Finn, and others in the fourth grade. I kept this love of reading until the beginning of seventh grade.
It took me until tenth grade, yet another year spent relatively lonely and without meaningful friendships, to start to feel like I was alive.
I came into the living room one night to watch television with my mother. The 1992 version of Of Mice and Men starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich was playing. I sat down during the scene in which Curly is beating up on Lennie, and after the prompting of the rest of the workers, Lennie grabs Curly’s hand and crushes it.
I immediately identified with the characters in the movie who were controlled by society’s restrictions: Lennie, for his different personality and way of acting; Crooks, for his physical disability and ostracism from the group; Curly’s wife, for having crushed dreams.
After the ending scene by the creek-side camping site, I quietly left the room. I closed the door to my room and cried.
The read the novella the next day.
During tenth grade, I felt what I now recognize as depersonalization. I felt as though my eyeballs were the only thing left in my body. When I walked I had to remind myself that I had legs.
And a deep feeling of nothing.
In the eleventh grade, I met a girl, addie for short.
On our first date (which we both didn’t admit was a date until afterward) we went to Huntley Meadows. And to an abandoned house called Mount Air, that once belonged to one of George Washington’s cousins. And to an old railroad track in the deep woods behind her house.
In this lost places, I found my spirit. I cried for the first time in my life tears of joy.
“I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me”
I discovered a love for music like never before during the lost years. The songs kept me alive. They made me start to write poetry.
I wanted to emulate those musicians and the impact they had had on me. I wanted (and still want) to continue the work they do.
In the twelfth grade, I began to excel at creative writing. I entered poetry competitions and made it to the top scores and finals stages. I wrote about loneliness, depression, and self-harm.
Poetry and fiction to me isn’t just a way of expressing myself. It’s how I don't just up and explode.
And it’s how I connect with other people.
When I think about how important it is to fund artistic programs at school, I think of how hundreds and thousands of students use art as a tool to keep going.
If there wasn’t a poetry program at Hayfield Secondary, as well as a Creative Writing course, (both of which are headed by two amazing teachers) I can confidently say that I would not be the person I am today.
This morning I came from home from my school’s all night grad party. The sunrise was outstanding. There was red. But I felt no warning.
This morning, a Saturday morning, I broke free.
This means from the pain of my adolescent years.
But it also means from teachers such as teacher ken, who helped me start my blog and challenges me in ways I can’t imagine yet; Mr. Hannon, the head of our poetry club; Mrs. Poquis, the teacher who taught me how to love reading again, and Mr. Nelson, the Creative Writing teacher who made me think critically about my writing.
And of course, from some of my friends, who are going to different universities or life paths. I have friends going to George Mason, Virginia Tech, and Northern Virginia Community College. addie for short and I are attending the same university. I am more than thankful for that.
But right now, I can close my eyes, and think about how I never have to step in those hallways ever again. The hallways that make me slouch, sigh, and dissociate.
Now I can start living.