JEREMY'S GLB PAGE

High school is never an easy time. In those four years, we are all preoccupied with the process of self-discovery. What kind of friends do I want? Would I rather study or play on the day before a big test? How should I balance morals and enjoyment? Conformity and individuality? Where do I fit in? We're uncertain of the answers, and don't know how best to find them. Maturity is growth, and growth involves stretches and strains. Growth can be painful.

I felt these pressures strongly, especially the need to conform. In high school, different is bad. Few know this more than students, myself included, who are growing up gay.

Consciously or not, society tries very hard to make you straight. This leads to lots of confusion, repression, and frustration. When I started high school, I didn't think of myself as "different." I didn't think of myself at all, actually. Back then, academics were everything. I had a packed schedule, with some tough classes, and I never allowed myself time to sit and think about things. I was always working.

I didn't have much of a social life, of course. A few close friends, a few acquaintances, and teachers. I spent my friday nights writing computer games. Love-- and sex-- were a low priority, and I was satisfied to keep it that way. Sure, I'd sometimes fool around when a certain friend slept over, but neither of us took it seriously. He always had a girlfriend.

Things changed when I started sophomore year. High school wasn't new anymore, and it took less of my attention. I made a few new friends. I had a crush on one, and felt ready to do something about it, but I still planned on finding a girlfriend sooner or later. And of course, I never talked to anyone about my feelings. Not even my one friend. We still weren't taking it seriously.

When summer came around, I had a computer job which kept me busy, and I spent lots of time with other, new friends. I wrote some games, did some fishing, started a book. This was also the summer I had my architectural awakening, and decided I had found my field. I learned how to express myself, how to spatially organize an idea, and how to create metaphors in stone and glass and steel. It was a very busy, very consuming summer, and my life was intellectual and academic again.

Unfortunately, when fall came around, things had changed with my special friend. We rarely saw each other, as we'd hardly met at all during the summer. After a few months, I realized I was alone. It was a very disconcerting feeling, enhanced by the presence in my English class of a quietly gay couple. They were a year younger than I, and watching them from across the room, I was deeply struck by how familiar they looked; that's how I'd looked, with my friend, just a year ago.

It was a rude awakening. But it crystallized my feelings; I finally came to terms with being different. It was a necessary step. But I soon began to feel pangs of regret, thinking of my friend. What if, sophomore year, I'd been less hesitant? What might have been? What if I'd had the nerve to say, "I love you," and he'd said it back? Only with him gone did I realize how important he'd been to me, how much I'd drawn from his strength and confidence. (I later learned that, that fall, he'd been going through the same private hell.) My life was different now, because I'd been too quiet, because I hadn't known my emotions.

I was thrown deeper into confusion. Part of me still didn't want to accept the truth. We all have a little homophobia; we all must come out to ourselves before we can come out to other people. I still hadn't really mastered my emotions. That spring, I got into a relationship with a girl. We'd been friends for a few months, and even though she had some emotional problems of her own, I was achingly lonely. I'd already had to push thoughts of suicide out of my mind.

It was nearly a disaster. I remember being at a mutual friend's house when the phone rang, and we learned she'd swallowed a bottle of pills. Luckily, she recovered. But we both had to accept that we each needed things the other simply couldn't provide. That relationship is my other major regret. It dovetails nicely with the first, since had I been with him, I wouldn't have become involved with her.

I was supremely grateful when my junior year ended. I had an entire summer to be away from people I didn't want to deal with, time to rebuild my self-confidence. My computer job was forty hours a week now (up from fifteen or twenty last year) and I excelled at it. A friend I worked with, who went to North and would also be a senior, introduced me to jazz music and philosophy. Again, an intellectually satisfying summer.

It was a time of reconciliation, as well. I spent much time with my friend. It was almost like meeting him all over again; we'd both changed so much in the trauma of that year apart. He'd always been religious, and now he felt that for us to continue where we'd left off would be "wrong." He had a new girlfriend, of course. For me, it was sad, but I resolved not to talk with him about it; the last thing I wanted was for him to doubt himself.

I learned more about the public, "political" side of being gay. From the Internet, I learned about coming out, and read that one-third of teenagers attempting suicide are gay youth who knew no other solution. I resolved to be more open in my senior year; I wanted to be out, and I wanted people to see how I could be successful, and still be gay. I wanted to crush stereotypes and make people think twice before calling someone a "fag." I wanted to be a role model for other kids who were struggling as I had.

So, I'm much stronger than I was. I'm in no danger of killing myself. Gone is the depression that dogged my junior year, and part of this year. I'm moving on. But still, once in a while, drifting off to sleep, I'll hear the faint whisper, plantive and regretful: "What if..."

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