Familiarity
Hi, I want to introduce my friend of many years. We’ve been through so much together: break-ups, arguments, family fights, long nights, and loss of communication. Yet, when you look at our lives, we’re pretty similar. We both were raised by a single parent and moved around a lot. Our characteristics are just as much alike: passionate, artistic, insecure, outgoing, but shy, and we both share a heavy secret on our shoulders.
I want you to meet him, but before we get into names, I want to tell you a quick story. In the sixth grade, we didn’t know each other, like we knew each other existed, but we weren’t friends. We didn’t understand each other. But by the end of the year, I hated him. A part of me saw him, but I didn’t need his negativity. Then, my family moved to Huntsville, AL. We completely lost contact.
I was alone, I had no friends, and everyone around me was so different from me. So, by the eighth grade, I started to white-wash myself. I distanced myself from that 6% of the school’s population, which were fellow African American students. I couldn’t handle it; I felt like if I could put other people down, then it’ll make me feel better. But I knew better!
On December 23, I got a message, “I want to see you….” You know who it was from. Anyway, I was like, “Okay, cool, whatever.” I didn’t want to be nice to him because why should I? Do you know? Then I was like, “But you’re in Minnesota.” I thought I’d never get a response. For a while, I asked myself, “Why did I say that?” Finally, I woke up to, “Do me a favor, don’t change yourself for anyone else. I like you for who you are: bold, fearless, creative, outgoing, cheeky, and chill. I wish I didn’t resent you when you were here and I was able to talk to you. Just please, be yourself! And I love you.”
I cried because that’s exactly what I was doing, and he paid attention to me. So I knew I had to change. I had to be proud of myself, my heritage, my truth, my struggles, and most of all, the power I had in my voice. So, when I returned to school, I put 110% of my time into that school; these people would remember my name. So, I knew I had to do a couple of things; I needed a way to connect with everyone. So, I pulled some strings and had a meeting with the administration and ended up hosting the first Black history month program they had in 10 years, and I was the first student ever to host it in our school.
Later that afternoon, I got an email, and my aunt got a letter saying, “I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the Class of 2022 of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School of Twin Cities….” My mom cried, saying, “Minnesota, here we come.”
Skipping a couple of months forward, it was my first day of school, and I got to see him for the first time. I looked in the mirror, and I saw him. The dude that I’ve been resenting and held a grudge out on. The one person I needed to love. Myself!
“There you are. You made me proud now go show them who you are,” he said.
“Why now?” I said as I cried. Like balling my eyes out, “Why weren’t you here when I needed you?”
“I had to leave because you needed to lose something to realize how much you need it. If I never left, you wouldn’t have questioned your identity, and then you wouldn’t be scared to embrace me when we met again.”
And there he was, in all his glory.
My friend... Beau
