Even in the hallways, I would walk and read at the same time. I kept to myself and would spend all day reading. So instead of fighting, I simply ignored every insult directed at me. They thought I was dumb, and they weren't kind to how I looked. Middle schoolers weren't very fond of my accent and lisp with which I spoke English. They're annoying." I didn't want to add to the bullying I was already receiving. I thought to myself, "There's no way I'm gay. Where I thought they had meant "gay" as in jovial, happy, etc., they had given me a new meaning, one that I had never heard and immediately rejected.Īs the years went on I kept hearing it directed at me, yet I still couldn't put two and two together. Someone finally managed to suppress their chortling and explained the definition of the word. After the my sixth-grade classmates burst into laughter, I asked what was wrong. They never spoke of it in at my private Catholic school and it was never really discussed anywhere, so I didn't even know that it existed. Having grown up in Puerto Rico for the first 11 years of my life, I hadn't had much exposure to anything blatantly labeled as "homosexual." I was in sixth grade when a peer asked me if I was "gay." Being the naive, non-fluent, recent transfer that I was, I answered yes. I first encountered the term back in 2008. She hadn't reacted out of the ordinary, yet I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that maybe I let something slip.įor the longest time, I wrestled with the idea of being gay. However, later that same evening, it started to bother me. We kept bantering back and forth, laughing and teasing each other. "Yeah, you should go get his number," she replied.Īt that instance, I was just joking around. I jokingly prodded her with my elbow and asked, "Do you think that guy is cute?" as I pointed towards an employee who was walking by us.
The summer before my senior year of high school in Virginia, I was with my best friend, Katie Fitzjarrald, at Kohl's.
I never felt better with myself than after I came out as gay.Ĭoming out couldn't have been more awkward for me. Although I swapped lines for the final cut of the video, the message still stuck with me and I agree with it wholeheartedly. This was the line originally given to me for the "You Can Play" video I was participating in for the University of Mary Washington's Athletic Department. "You can't be the best you can be if you can't be yourself."