Personal Narrative: Transitioning Into A Catholic High School

I discovered that I was gay in the seventh grade. It seemed like there was no one out there like me. I felt alone during my final years of middle school, and I neither knew nor found anyone else who had gone through what I expected in high school. Nevertheless, time never stops and I was swept in with its waves. Transitioning into a Catholic high school should not have been difficult because I had been attending Catholic schools since kindergarten; however, knowing that I was gay altered something. It felt as if "GAY" was branded onto my forehead, and all I could do was cower and cry. The fear took hold of me as I abstained from the swim team. I love swimming and still do, but I took such a beating from this mindset that I failed to do what I loved. The thoughts of my friends if I came out while on the team were too much. Would they think that I had some ulterior motive; was I just on the team to check out guys? Yet, paranoia can only go so far and, near the end of freshman year, I began to test the safety of the waters. Sophomore year, I came out.

While my desire to come out was achieved, it brought unforeseen ramifications. I strived to become myself at high school, yet all my friends wanted was a caricature of myself. They did not seem to want to know me, only desiring to see what they wanted. It was as if I was being seen through carnival mirrors, being distorted and exaggerated into something I was not. There was no right way to express myself to my classmates because they did not even bother to learn the real me. My peers wanted a stereotype, a cartoon image they could draw out of me. Despite my best efforts, I failed to find the golden ratio of who I really was to who I was expected to