I would like to thank my club advisor Alexis Shook for showing me this opportunity in the first place, and my GSA club members Damien, Colby, Remy, Kayden, Ember, Mint, Joshua, Ron, and Aiden for always making my weekdays have purpose.
If I could go back in time, 13 years ago, and stand face-to-face with my younger self, the first thing I would do is hold her tight, and let her know that despite the pain inside and around her that life wouldn’t always be this scary. It would be a lie of course, but kids don’t usually realize that you’re lying until much much later, and that’s what I would’ve preferred to the yelling and screaming that preceded my confession. “You’re raising the devil!” I remember hearing as my mom sobbed to her mother like I had confessed to a murder. In my mind back then, I wished I could disappear, that I could go back all the 8 years of my life and had never existed, that would have been preferable to the fight that proceeded.
Then I would go forward in time, to another version of me, 14 years old and discovering the queer community within my hometown for the first time, and I would tell her to remain strong, to hold her friends close, and support them when she could, but focus on herself the most and raising herself up out of her financial situation, focus on her grades rather than the heartbreak that surrounded her. I would tell her that just because she felt alone, and afraid, it didn’t mean she was, and she had the rest of her life to figure it out. Rather than the years of her lying in bed and wishing that she had any real friends at all that knew her, wishing she could be closer instead of pushing them away because she was too afraid to want people to want her around.
Then I would come even closer, to the me that I am now, to an 18 year old girl who had finally figured out that making friends was no fun and she’d much rather hide in her room and never face life outside. I would force her to use her words, shake her and explain that she had wasted MUCH too much time already feeling sorry for herself and that life would not wait much longer. But even If I went back in time, and said all those things, would it change the outcome at all? Would she be standing taller, and prouder than ever? With friends that had long since left her? With the same joy in her heart she had since she was 8, or the same passion for politics that filled her head at 14, or the yearning for closeness at just 18 years old?
If I could go back in time, 13 years ago, and stand face-to-face with that 8 year old, and that 14 year old, and that 18 year old, I wouldn’t preach resilience because it would not be fair to the 21 year old me who had to suffer it all just to get here. I would preach kindness, and love, and joy, and to take what you want despite being terrified of the looks your peers give you just because you like girls. And to stay in touch with your mother, because just like you she is afraid of the looks you’d be given, because she was not afraid of you being who you are, she was afraid of the person you let yourself become after decades of wanting to just belong.
I would say to open your mind to the situation, because your attraction wasn’t the devil, it was the fear of being different, it was the fear-mongering in the news, saying kids were being brainwashed when I knew since I was born that I was always different. I would say to myself and to all others around me to let yourself be loved, and to not reminisce on all the things you could have said or have done right, because progress is progress even if it’s small. I would say to all the queer people, the kids, and the teens, the adults, the women, men, and everyone else in between, that just because you are different, are scared, or feel weak, it doesn’t mean anything. You are still you, and if you believe you are strong, and worthy, and someone deserving of peace, then you are.
And nobody else can tell you anything. You are loved, and resilient, and much to the disbelief of the masses, you aren’t scary, or ugly, or something to scoff at. You are just like everyone else, just with a different mindset.
