Originally, I had something else entirely in mind to write about today, but as I was leaving work my last words to Shay were "Apparently I'm pretty personable, and I didn't used to be."
Growing up as a military brat, naturally I moved around a lot. I don't think I've ever lived anywhere longer than four years in my entire life actually. Practically every other year I changed schools because we either got reassigned to another base, we moved to a different house across town, or moving up through the levels. One good thing that came about this was I generally found someone to be friends with fairly quickly each year, and, assuming I stayed in the same school I even kept a few. But constantly being the "new kid" had a lasting effect on me as well.
Throughout all my years in standard education, all of my peer relationships remained very shallow. The majority of the people I called my friends were on the outskirts of the social cliques at school. They (and myself) were considered the weird kids, set apart from the others for some reason or another. I remember some of them as being very bookish, or nerdy, and others as coming from less well-off families than most in the upper middle-class school districts. I remember Cody, the boy who sounded like he was gay. And Anna who always brought her various foster siblings to eat with us at the lunch table during their first few weeks at a new school. During my freshman year of high school I sat with my teammate Diana and her circle of friends, all of whom were Mexican and Latin American immigrants, so english was hardly ever spoken at that table. Pretty much only Diana and Mariana ever made an effort to include me in conversations, unless someone had a question about their schoolwork. Looking back, I sat with them just so that I wasn't sitting alone like the outcast I felt I was.
By the time I got to high school I had started doing my homework during my lunch hour, often skipping lunch entirely to study in the refuge of the special ed classroom (yes I was in special ed) or an empty hallway that was technically off limits because class was in session in that wing. During my junior year I joined the drill team, got a job at a fast food joint, and volunteered at the hospital before school. I kept my self going constantly, the concentration needed to keep my teenage ADHD mind on whatever task I was supposed to be doing pushing all other thoughts out of my mind, therefore sparing me the need to face the darker parts of my life since I had no time to think about them.
The people whom I called my friends when I spoke about them were merely acquaintances. I only speak to one person from my adolescence with any regularity, and she is also the only one I have sought out willingly. I was such a weird kid.
I know that the year I spent working alongside my sister did a lot to help me learn about who I really was. When you spend eight hours in a small room with only one or two other people and a number of infants, you talk about anything and everything. Over the course of a year, my sister and I discussed many different aspects of life, and for the first time in my life my opinions were voiced, heard, and respected. I started to let go of the dark and twisty teenager I had been.
But I think the biggest impact on my personal growth was done unintentionally by my boss, Scott, and my manager, Bonnie. Both of them are some of the nicest people I know, and they are the best people to work for. Scott himself is gay, and has been with his partner for nearly twenty years. He is very open about it with his employees, really only hiding his queer identity when it comes to our clients and their families. But if they ask him directly he is honest, and doesn't apologize for being himself. Bonnie is really open to ideas about anything and everything. You could broach the most off the wall idea and she will give it serious thought before criticizing it. She's from New York, so she was raised accepting people for who they are. With the atmosphere the two of them created at work, and having the comfort of knowing that there was no way I would be pushed out of my job because someone didn't like the fact that I was gay gave me the security I needed to come out at work.
The funniest part about me coming out to my various coworkers was my apprehension about Mama, the oldest employee at the company who considers all of us as her children. I will admit that because of her age, 64 years old, I stereotyped her as the person most likely to dislike me being so open about my sexuality. And in her true motherly fashion, Mama not only accepts it, but is the most curious about how I came to realize that I was gay and how it affects the rest of my life. Mama also had a big impact on my personal growth since coming out for the first time.
So I have moved from the girl who sat, invisible, on the fringes of society listening silently to everyone else. Today, I don't hide as much, have actually made the effort to interact with others outside of places where my presence is required. I now join in on other peoples conversations, voicing my opinions without (much) fear of rejection or opposition. My circle of people who I trust with my life hasn't gotten any bigger, but my network of friends and other people that I know has grown tenfold.
And more change is yet to come.....
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