Ten Years: Confessions of an Over-Dramatic and Wildly Confused Little Troublemaker (2008-2009)
Hey everyone,
It's me again.
Welcome to the official first installment of my "Ten Years" series. If you are just joining us, then I'll give you a brief overview of what I'm doing.
Last month, I realized that it's been about ten years since the end of middle school and the beginning of high school for me. Knowing all of this, I felt that it would be the perfect time to do a little self reflection.
Browsing my blog, I noticed I've spent a lot of time writing about other people and focusing on certain issues that obviously do concern me, but I don't think I've given y'all the chance to get to know me a little better, regarding my past.
I believe my first post ever on here was about myself and I talked a little about my aspirations and probably a bunch of queer shit, but I guess I wanted to dive a little deeper into my experience.
Of course, I'm not nearly in the position to be giving you my True Hollywood Story; don't think of this as quite my "Tell-All Book" either. It's more of me reflecting on what I've done in the past ten years and seeing how I've changed in some ways, how I haven't changed, and possibly what I could do better.
I was actually talking to a friend of mine the other day about a lot of personal things, and we brought up the past and how shitty we were. The main question we kept asking was why we did certain things? It was honestly very difficult to answer.
That's when I realized that I might be doing this series for another reason. So much of my life was defined by my high school experiences and whenever things would get shitty nowadays, I would crumble and wish I was back to the age when I was surrounded by friends— when my responsibilities were minuscule.
What I really need to do is put my past to rest. That's why this series is necessary. I've gotta write it all down one last time. I need to face what I've done and ultimately move past it, once and for all.
It's gonna get messy. Just looking back at my old photos, I started to tear up thinking about the good times, the bad times, the people I loved, the people who left me.
Of course, there will be some funny moments, but there will also be some heartbreaking truths—things that I never really wanted to talk about at the time, but feel mature enough to finally admit.
Speaking of photos, the cover photo for this post isn't ten years old. I couldn't really find any pictures of myself from 2008. I've only had my Facebook for about 8 or 9 years and we all know what happened with Myspace. The photo I used is from senior year, but if you want to see the youngest me I could find, here is my first ever Facebook profile picture.
That kid had some fucking style, right?
What an interesting time that was in my life. I can somewhat remember what happened that day. It was at the Boys and Girl's club, probably a Friday. Every Friday night was "Teen Night" where us older folks could just chill. Everything was free to use: the computers, pool tables, gym. Near the end of the night we'd play some sort of group game to force everyone to hang out.
I lived for those nights. It seemed like a nice escape.
This photo was taken in the corner by the vending machines. That must've been our hang out spot for the moment. My hair was so fucking big; sometimes I wonder how people could tolerate looking at me because I cringe every time I see it.
Somehow I survived.
I've thought about how I wanted to approach this blog and I'm doing my best to remember all of the little details, so I'm deciding to pace it out a few years at a time. Starting with 2008, the year I started high school. It was this month, ten years ago when I first entered as a freshman.
If you think that high school was my biggest source of drama, you are sorely mistaken. In a future article I will divulge to you what happened when I was much younger. I know most people can barely remember elementary school because it wasn't entirely stimulating and basically everyone was your friend, but not where I went.
For me, elementary school was a fucking battlefield. I'm being serious. It was more of a high school than my actual high school was. But I'll save those juicy details for a later post.
If you want to check out the intro to this series, here's the link:
https://rikopratt.wixsite.com/hazelnutcoffee/single-post/2018/08/27/An-Open-Letter-To-My-Middle-School-Self
Along with this post, I've updated my Playlist of the Week section with the music I was jamming to between 2008-2009. I found an abundance of throwbacks that we all definitely forgot about, but fucking loved. Check it out for some nostalgia.
Without further ado, here we go.
2008
The summer before high school was when I met someone who would become one of the closest people to me, but would also cause the most pain. (For the sake of protecting identities, I will use animals instead of human names.) We will call her, Lion.
I met Lion at the Boys and Girls Club and she quickly became part of the group. She had this thing about her that everyone was captivated by. She possessed wisdom, she was comfortable in herself, and she always knew more about everyone around her than they did. She was also a couple years older, and older people were always looked at as very interesting.
Maybe it was because we had group singalongs of "I Kissed A Girl" and it wasn't quite believable when I sang the "I liked it" part, or maybe she just knew everything, but one of the first questions Lion asked me was "Are you gay?"
She asked me over PictoChat on the Nintendo DS, so points for creativity, I guess.
Growing up, that was at the top of my FAQs, starting in elementary school from some straight guys. (Another thing from that part of my life that I will gladly talk about another time.)
I know Lion didn't mean any harm; she just wanted me to be honest with myself. Unfortunately, it would still take time to fully get to that point. Like a lot of time.
For now, Lion continued to be close to me. I remember talking to her basically every day. We evolved from PictoChat. I would text her on my SideKick. (I thought that shit was the coolest phone ever.)
Lion was never at the same high school as me, so during the school year I had a completely different group of friends. One that would last for a while, with memories and comfort. However, it did make me wonder if that closeness came from seeing each other every single day.
Speaking for now, I can only say that one of them remains close to me, and we'll call her Shiba. With so many people leaving, I'm really glad she didn't. I don't think we actually were all that close in high school. We were both just part of the group. We did have a few classes, but that was it.
I'm still really thankful that despite the fact that everyone else left, Shiba was there when I felt most lonely. Of course, all of this comes a lot later.
Let's go back to freshman year of high school where everything is perfectly fine. Nothing will break the bonds we have. We will make it through many fights, many guys, many misunderstandings. But you could see the cracks, even at the beginning.
Something I've discovered about my past self is that I was completely defined by who I hung out with. I was nothing without my friends. Everywhere I went, I needed to make sure I knew people. I was completely dependent. And I wasn't good at sharing.
I kept all of my friends from each other because there never really was a reason for them to run into each other. My friends from school didn't need to know my Boys and Girls Club friends. But I still needed every single one of them to like me, to trust me, to see me.
The interesting thing was that I was exactly the same person in both groups. I'm not saying that it's a good thing, but I'm glad I was never fake or pretending to be something else.
However, in every situation I needed to be at the center. I was easily the closest to each person in the group. You know how sometimes one or two people may be a tiny bit closer to each other, but you all still get together as a group?
Well, in both groups, I had that one-on-one relationship with everyone.
I wouldn't say it was bad to get to know people and find a connection, but I guess I needed to be the most important person in everyone's life. It was strange. I don't know why, but I needed it—that approval. It was something that I thought would make me feel better about myself.
Strangely enough, it was probably the same in my youth group. At this point, I was still regularly attending church with my mother. There were church camps that I would always looked forward to, and people I really cared about.
Though, I feel like a young queer boy would do his best to not be noticed in such a place, this guy was convinced in those days that he would become an actor, so maybe that was a big part of why I needed the spotlight.
The best way to describe that time in my life was to say I was confused, about a lot of things. Again, it would take years to figure a lot of this shit out.
2009
I owe a lot about discovering myself to Lion's sister. We'll call her Tiger. One day I was hanging out with those two and another friend who we will call Cat, and at some point we decided to go around in a circle and tell a secret. When it got to Tiger, she told us she was bisexual.
To me, this was a huge deal. Like, who just says that in 2009? Also, how did she figure it out? How does someone simply know themselves? What cheat codes did she use?
I spent the entire rest of that day thinking about that moment and about how I was never able to allow myself to question that part of me. I called up Lion (who I talked to every night) and told her that I finally realized that I might be into guys.
Her reaction:
Unfortunately, I wasn't quite ready to admit that I liked guys and only guys, so I did a thing that I thought was the best option at the time. I told everyone I was bi.
I know all of my bi friends reading this probably just face-palmed, and I'm sorry. My reasoning at that time was that it would make it easier for everyone to digest. Knowing that there is a possibility that I could end up with a woman, would make my mom less mad.
I grew up in a Christian household and my relatives made it seem like being gay was not an option. I did my best to not think about it and I tried to force myself to like girls.
It didn't work. In fact, I ended up hurting a lot of people. I never went too far or did anything physical that I regret. But I did regret using those girls to figure out my own shit. They didn't deserve that, especially because I knew they actually really liked me.
There was one experience in particular that I completely regret and consider one of the worst instances of my life. I wished I hadn't done it and it was hard to tell why I did it, but it happened.
That one doesn't come until 2010.
I don't think I was throwing myself into those situations in 2009. It was more of a year of telling people about my discovery because it was this new and interesting thing.
I made the mistake of telling one of my friends on April Fools' Day. "I'm gay" is how I began my confession. Then I said "April Fools" and finally told her I was bisexual.
Can you tell which one was the actual April Fools?
That same year I also remember telling one of my cousins about it. We aren't particularly close anymore, but I remember having some real moments. I still thought of my other cousin who I never got to see much as the cooler one (funny how that happens). Let me get those animal names running again.
The cousin I told first will be called Snake and the second one mentioned is Fox.
I ended up telling Fox the next year at her graduation from high school. That's when we both came out to her step sister. So, my other other cousin too, I guess. We'll call her Pony. We both came out as bi at that time, but believe me, they both know the truth about me now.
I told Snake (the first one) as soon as I could. I remember the exact day. We went to the Sports Arena venue to see High School Musical on Ice (don't judge me) and I told her on the way back. I don't remember how she reacted, but I don't think she was surprised.
The next time I saw her, she told me that my coming out really made her think and figure things out about herself. She then proceeded to come out as bisexual to me. It was an interesting instance. All I did was share something personal about myself and it resonated with another person who felt comfortable enough to share her stuff with me.
Somehow, things worked out faster for her. That was something that always made me salty. I had come out way before, and she just came out a week ago and she's already talking to some girl. Being around her relationship successes and the constant rejection I would receive in the future really fucked with me.
That was around the time I started to feel bad about myself. Situations like the aforementioned would occur several times throughout my high school career and beyond. The people that I would surround myself with would always have people liking them—sometimes the people I liked would like them and it would make me feel like shit.
Why didn't they like me? Am I ugly? Am I stupid? What did I need to change about myself?
Lion was without a doubt one of those people. She was pretty and skinny and everyone liked her. I was nothing compared to her.
I don't think she ever knew how insignificant she made me feel sometimes. Don't get me wrong, she was still one of the coolest and most interesting people in the world. She didn't do any of it on purpose and we were close for a long time, but that didn't mean she was good for me.
When the time came that she didn't need me anymore, all of the glamour and glitz that she brought into my life had disappeared.
Of course, I shouldn't play the victim. I wasn't that great of a person either. I think we brought out the worst in each other. Our fights were horrible and we should be credited as the original inventors of "read receipts." Even if the argument had nothing to do with it, we would bring up all of the shit of the past and try to use it against each other.
Somehow, we would make up. But what good was that if we knew that it would end up like shit again?
Ar the time, we just both needed someone to accept our toxic behavior and do stupid shitty things to other people with.
It never really made sense as to why I put her up so high. I had (and still have) a thing for placing people on a pedestal. For making everything they say the most important thing to come out of their mouth. A lot of my emotions were based on things she would say or do.
It wasn't fair to anyone else, especially since I made it such a big deal to be so important in everyone else's life.
Lion wasn't the only powerful force in my life. I could never forget about two of my best friends from the Boys and Girls Club.
They were also friends with Lion, but not in the way I was. Of course, I knew both of them pretty well, but I never got a chance to tell them how special they were to me.
They were sisters who I will call Hamster and Chinchilla. I was slightly closer to Hamster, the younger sister, but I still had a lot of good memories with Chinchilla.
Hamster was the one who originally made me get a Facebook at the end of 2009. I was so stubborn about it for no reason and next thing you know, I was obsessed. I was THAT person who would post like five times a day.
Now, when Facebook shows me my memories from that time, I always cringe. How did I have friends?
I also remember that both of them helped me name my turtle about ten years ago. To be fair, it was during our weeb phase and we loved Naruto and his favorite food was ramen. So, that's it. I have a turtle named Ramen and she's still alive. She got really big, but that's not important right now.
With Hamster and Chinchilla, there were a lot of fights that I completely take fault for. I eventually would see a pattern—turned out I argued with literally everyone I've ever known. I was a bit over-dramatic. That's something I still needed to work on. I never truly apologized to them for being so problematic.
I credit Hamster for seeing the writer in me. Every time we got together we would discuss what ideas we had in our heads that we weren't actually writing down.
We'd use websites like Quizilla to post our horrible stories and fan fiction and she honestly just inspired me so much. Both of them did. They were wise beyond their years and I know they're doing great things now. I just hoped I didn't cause too much damage when we were younger.
The drama didn't stop there, however. I fucked up plenty more times as the years continued on. I got hurt many more times, but I also started to learn a bit more about myself. There are things I regret and things that I'm thankful for, regardless of how much I hated them at the time.
All of my experiences—though, not one hundred percent positive—still had a hand in making me who I am today.
Thank you for coming on this journey with me. I promise there is so much more ground to cover. We're just getting started. Stay tuned for the next installment of "Ten Years," focusing on 2010-2012.
Until next time,
R