Two years ago was the first time I had ever heard of a "Poets Alphabet". My poetry teacher asked us to write one as a project, so I decided to save mine. Over a couple weeks I wrote out 26 different paragraphs detailing my current state of mind.
I have had a hard time with posting this, and after writing I erased twice before finally deciding to go ahead with it. The reason is because at the time of writing, I was in a much more negative energy than I am now, so this series of postings might reveal that aspect of me at that time. I will not apologize or admit regret for the things I wrote, but I am not that person anymore and want to be clear, they do not represent who I am, only who I was.
A is for And...
Always leaving the possibility of something more...
Always giving hope to me in my moments of hopelessness...
"And I see the sun"
"And I know I will be okay"
And, and, and insert statement here
In writing this I was coming from a place where I was not welcome in the groups that I was forced to be apart of. I knew I didn't belong, and even worse, everyone else knew I didn't belong too. I had started at this private school in Nashville as a junior, who did not know how real kids my age were. I had been around my cousins that went to private and public schools, but I had always been home schooled. When I wrote this as a senior, it hadn't gotten any better. Don't get me wrong, my parents did not force me to go to highschool, I begged to go, I just didn't know what I was asking for.
I remember when I had all the confidence in the world and no one could bring me down. I was the coolest person in my church friend group. Let me just say, hanging out with church friends as a kid, and being called gay by a group of girls as a 16 year old straight guy, just aren't the same...
And that was just in the first couple of weeks...
The one friend I had at the entire school, was a girl, and we rode to school with each other everyday because we lived down the street from one another(Better on gas to carpool). I didn't mind that my only friend was a girl, and I especially didn't mind when we started dating that semester, but the thing about dating your best friend is... don't date your best friend... When we broke up a few months later, there were no more friends, and her friends who tolerated me before, had somehow forgotten I existed. Junior year was not very good by a long shot...
I had no one to talk to about these things. Of course, I had always been close to my parents, but it's not easy to talk about how hard the social aspect of school is, when they want to believe you are the greatest kid to walk the face of the planet. I still haven't talked to anyone about this until writing this post.
All of this to say, I had not had a good experience when I wrote this during the first semester of senior year. But please don't feel bad for me!! I learned a lot about myself and humans in general through those two years, and would not trade that experience now!
Life is good! It gets better! I would say to anyone who might be going through something similar, "Please, find someone to talk to, do not bottle up these things, always know, you have more people that love and care for you than you think!"
I will be posting one letter everyday or so for the next bit til I finish it out. I have to say, reading through these letters, I am remembering where I was, and I rejoice that I was able to come through that time. I hope this post helps someone else.