Dark Sky

When I was in high school, the school in the neighboring city decided to hold a dance that included students from neighboring school districts. One of my teachers had a nephew named Henry who was my age, so she asked if I could go with her nephew to the dance as his date. The thing was she didn't say the word "date", she just asked if I wanted to go.

I took a few days to think about it and ended up deciding that if I wanted to stop not being sure about my sexuality, I had to start going out on dates with guys. So I walked into her classroom and said I would go.

Things started out fine. My dad decided to drive us, so I picked Henry up at his house at 5 pm. We didn't know each other, so the ride there was extremely awkward. He tried to initiate conversation, but we both knew that we were forcing ourselves to talk. It was definitely one of the most uncomfortable situations I have ever been in.

When we got to the campus, I just sat at a table in the corner of the event. Later he joined me at the table, and we sat some more. We didn't speak this entire time. To this day, it was one of the longest nights of my life.

Fortunately, I knew some girls at the school, and they decided to come to rescue me from Henry, who was the worst date created in history. He looked like he understood. I made up a few half-hearted apologies and ran off with the group of girls. I never looked back to see if he was still there.

After meeting up with a couple of friends, I just went out by myself and stared at the various couples hanging out. I think I just felt sad more than anything. I tried to go back to Henry and sit with him, but there was no point. With my friends beckoning to me, this situation just kept getting more awkward by the minute.

So after a while, and sat down on the grass. My dad wasn't outside. I called him and he said that he'd pick me up before midnight. I still had to find a way to waste the next couple of hours.

I remember leaning back and staring into the sky, and it looked like a deep gray marble. After a while, I had a strange feeling like I was falling. I straightened back up with my heart beating quickly in my chest. I felt like I sensed loss, even though I couldn't explain it. I definitely felt lonely.

Henry and I never spoke to each other again. The few times we saw each other, we acted like we didn't know one another. It was just an uncomfortable situation all around, one of which I'm glad to never have had to repeat again.

Changes

Sometime a few weeks ago, I woke up and realized that I couldn't recognize who I was.
It was just how I looked in the mirror. Something had shifted internally. I then flipped over in my notebook to entries written a few months ago, and it was as if my attitude towards the world, how I formed relationships or processed emotions -- it was as if I was a completely different person. It seems like I'm only now realizing how large that change was.

I guess it all started when I resolved to start saying yes to doing new things and to start making memories even though they might be out of my comfort zone. I started saying yes to going to new places and reconnected with old friends that I hadn't talked to in years. I said yes to a few blind dates that my friends set me up on, and even though nothing really came out of them in a romantic sense, these experiences helped me realize something within myself -- I was reminded that I could give value to a relationship and that I shouldn't compromise my happiness just because I didn't want to be alone. I started going out regularly with friends, and that sometimes doing crazy things is necessary for me to "get out there" and truly have fun. And then I started working, and people who I never would have met at school or otherwise in life have become some of the best people I've met in my life so far.

There are also things that I did out on my own. I started going to the gym again. I talked to people in the weight area (it was extremely intimidating at first, but much to my surprise, everybody was nice). I began writing again.

And slowly I realized that the judgmental, introverted person that I was started to become more outgoing and open with people. I would never have thought that was possible. Sometimes, it still feels strange and frightening, but no longer in a bad way.

So I guess the moral of the story is to keep doing what has worked so far -- to keep pushing myself and surround myself with people who support and accept me (despite my flaws), to start trusting more, and find out who I can be if I never give up. For the first time in a while, I'm excited to see what the future holds.

My Philosophy

As many of you may know, I've been visiting a lot of blogs lately. To be honest this experience has been both interesting and harrowing in its own way. I see people who are depressed, happy, or more often a bit of both. Most of these posts are boring, mainly because I can somehow feel that this person was not being true to the audience. That they were somehow lying to their audience.

With the year (about) that I have been blog-hopping, I have discovered something cool. Every blog is different in its own special way, but there is one main ideology behind each successful one. The way to really connect with someone is to really be honest about how you feel. The more you connect to the reader, the more they will enjoy reading your post, no matter what. 



Anyone can be a good writer. A good writer is constituted as having good grammar, good mechanics, nice structure. But that doesn't attract people. It's not what strikes people in the heart. People get honesty because they can emphasize with it. Good writing can definitely get you somewhere, but honesty really gets you to the point where you want to be in your writing.

And that is probably why I keep looking at blogs even though I'm so busy with other areas of life (classes, finding a job, etc). Sure, there's a lot of people with bad writing out there, but if there's honesty, there's something to be learned. It teaches everybody a lesson.

So this is my point. If I can express something that other people can just feel in them, then I believe I have succeeded. We all live in the same world, and I feel that my world is pretty much the same as yours. We're all the same, even though we give each other all of these labels to show how we are somehow "different". All of these differences are not important. Inside, we are the same person.