TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
olds who were all dealing with inner turmoil, trauma, and insecurities. Middle school was a blast! This was the beginning of a major shift in the way those around me were perceiving me, and I remember crying a lot. I’m human with natural human emotions, after all. However, somewhere along the way, those tears turned into laughs, which eventually turned into eye rolls. My absolute favorite thing about humans is our incredible ability to adapt. Something that at one time caused us so much pain can eventually be easily overlooked, no matter how prevalent it still is. Taking offensive questions and comments like a champ became second nature to me, but somewhere inside, I became bitter. Make no mistake, that initial offense that occasionally creeps over all of us is completely normal. I’m convinced it’s in our DNA! Have you seen Texarkana Cheers and Jeers? But it’s what we decide to do with that offense after the initial hurt where things tend to get a little rocky. As time passed, I realized I was internalizing a lot of these false narratives about me and building my entire identity around them. Instead of trooping on and proudly embracing myself for all my beautiful little eccentricities that signaled to others that I’m not the same as them, I became consumed with a longing for these people to experience the same pain I was enduring. I would speak aloud that I was unphased by the vitriol spewed my way while simultaneously obsessively rehashing my offense to anyone who would listen. I constantly searched for an excuse to talk bad about these people, to bully them the way they had me, and to gain sympathy, as it temporarily soothed (but, of course, never healed) the wound. After living a little life and gaining a little wisdom, most of us realize retaliation doesn’t remove your offense. Getting even doesn’t change any of your current circumstances, and holding a grudge or being angry only holds you back from reaching your full potential. On top of all this, the person who caused your hurt, the offender, is (possibly) sleeping soundly while you’re staring at the ceiling fixated on how they scarred you. Jesus occasionally speaks to me through dreams. In a dream I had in
GOOD EVENING TXK COLUMN BY BAILEY GRAVITT
O n my very first day of middle school, I was silently washing my hands with my head down, when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a girl who was scanning me up and down. She looked a little taken aback by me before she asked if I was gay. I didn’t know there was a “gay” way to wash your hands, but apparently, I had mastered it. No, I wasn’t wearing anything flashy or attention-grabbing, just some flip-flops and an Aeropostale tee, looking overly plain. I didn’t know exactly what that word meant, but the tone with which she asked me the
question didn’t give me the impression it was a compliment. After school, my mom explained it to me, and it kind of hurt my feelings. It wasn’t necessarily the word “gay” that offended me, but the negative way the word was hurled at me that day that stuck with me. Little did I know this would become a recurring question asked to me almost daily by my peers for the remainder of my junior high years. Ahhh, yes… I’m sure you can also remember your own wonderful junior high experiences and the absolute JOYS of being surrounded by angsty, filterless 12-14-year-
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