I’ve always had an inkling of who I was, but didn’t quite understood my real place in this world.
I also knew that there were many queer people in my life, whether it be my uncle, my mother’s colleagues, neighbors, hairdressers, or acquaintances. I’m sure they all had feelings of who I was to become before I could even figure out why I liked certain people more-so than others.
In high school, I was enamored by this boy (he was a Junior, while I was a Freshman). I thought fondly of him, and we became close friends through an ROTC-program. I wanted to be a part of his life, and I made it to a point to be his wingman. I did my best to kept confusing feelings towards him to myself, making sure I always went right by him, aany messages and gifts he wanted sent to girls came through me, and vice-versa. A bridge for communication pre-social media.
But what made this once fruitful partnership between us ending in complete shambles is solely by miscommunication — how word of mouth traveled much, much faster than tweets and DM’s of today. There was some sort of sophisticated way these would pass from one person to another I’ve still yet to understand. Gossiping in a dangerously small campus filled with pubescent and hormonal teenagers was a cocktail mix I never steered away from.
There was a tense moment he and I fought for what felt like hours, and I was left to tears. My older sister picked me up and I asked her why I was devastated over a girl. She knew it wasn’t about the girl, but about this boy I was winging for. I don’t think she ever admitted it to me until much later in my young adult life.
Everyone in my life knew who I was before I came to that realization. And they were all woven together, helping shape and comfort me up until the time my true self would finally arrive. I chose this photo I took of power lines, digitally colorized with a spectrum of colors to showcase people’s connections to one another, whether it be something intimate, to something grander. We are everywhere, after all.