Ever since the beginning of high school I have forgotten how the be the true me and I honestly can say that I will probably never remember who the true me really was.

Freshman year of high school wasn’t very daunting for me, with the help of my older brother I knew my way around the campus and all the other tidbits that you need to survive, the only problem was that I didn’t know how to act. Absolutely none of my friends came to the same magnet school as me and I didn’t know how to act with these new people. So in the beginning, I went default. I was as nice as humanly possible and eventually I was able to join a group of sophomores after two lonely days of lunch. Still even with these people I rarely talked, so rarely that it was three months before the sophomores realized that I was a freshman.

After a while my main friend in that group moved to some mid-west state and the group of sophomores dissipated, but by this time I had other friends and I had lunch with two guys outside by the gym. The three of us looked pretty sad eating lunch against a wall, but those months were some of my best high school memories. That was mainly because I had a crush on one of the other guys, but I was still too timid to act, so I settled with just being around him. By the end of freshman year I had gained new confidence and an impressive amount of new friends, each of which knew a different me.

You see, once I met a person I’m as nice as can be and then, as I learn what that person likes and dislikes, I subconsciously change myself so I can get along with that person. I don’t even realize what I’m doing until I look back at it. Everyone does it too, maybe it’s just to impress a companion for a date, and the only difference is that I end up with several different versions of me. Some people see me as a shy kid who doesn’t speak, others as a goth who couldn’t give a crap, some as a boy who only wants to entertain them, a few as a stoner who doesn’t think, many as a student who is willing to go into a debate with the teacher that goes over many student’s heads.


My sophomore English Teacher was the most impressionable person though, because, unlike normal and uncaring teachers, Ms. Fick was able to bring the real me to the surface again. The students of the class and the way the teacher acted brought out my quiet but funny side. I would respect the teacher’s rule while still making the students around me laugh. But Ms. Fick noticed and challenged me, which is something I wouldn’t expect a teacher to do, maybe another student. Ms. Fick would crack a joke about me, and I would crack one about her, never pushing the limits, everyone would laugh. It gave me the true happiness I knew I had been missing in my safe-stepping life; it was a release for me. Since then I have been more open to people when I first met them, I don’t say nearly as many lies.


The proof of Ms. Fick’s impact on me is in my junior year, this was the year I think I settled on a new me. I still had shades of personalities throughout junior year, but they were becoming muddled. That year I made a best friend (a first for me), finally pushed myself academically with two Advanced Placement classes, went to prom with a senior girl who I knew for three months (our chemistry was basically boiling over), made new friends all over the spectrum, helped friends with breakups and family issues as best I could, developed a crush a guy in my architecture class and had enough courage to flirt with him to which he kindly responded, had my first fight with my best friend (I didn’t even know we were fighting), pushed myself to become one of the top seven drafters in my architecture class, wrote the funniest and wittiest satire in my AP English class (direct work of Ms. Fick), I have even begun to get along with all of my family members all because Ms. Fick showed me who I really wanted to be.


I finally know who I am and I have never known a more satisfying feeling. I am finally released from the oppressive closet that I’ve hid in for so long. Oh, but that closet was a different closet then the closet other people come out of; no, this one was one of self-misunderstanding. Well now that I think about it there really is no difference between the two closets so I guess this is a coming out of sorts. I don’t plan to go around telling people I’m a homosexual though, I find it much funnier to let them guess. I bet half my friends think I’m gay and the other half think I’m straight. Hey, it’s my opinion that so long as you have a wonderful personality, it doesn’t matter what’s on the outside.

Whatever I am and who ever I am, I will always know one thing and that is that I am proud to be what I am.