INDIVIDUAL

I remember when I was in the prime of my raving the day that my co-workers sat me down.

It was back when I worked at McDonald's in Jonesboro. After a long day, I was ready to head back to my apartment. My co-workers who were vets were having smoke breaks. They flagged me down.

What was it? I wondered: Could it be about a party? Maybe they were wondering if I had drug connections. Then again, it might have been work-related.

"We were just wondering something," one of my co-workers said.

"Yeah," another one asked. "What is your secret?"

I felt my forehead wrinkle up. "My secret?"

"Well," my co-worker said, "why are you so happy?"

CURIOUS JEALOUSY

Apparently, people talk.

At work, there appears to be what I call The Cold War Syndrome due to people who normally talk to me not talking to me, but ignoring me. At the club, people scratch their heads at me...especially when anyone they like like me more than them, causing the scorned person to ask what anyone see in me. With my friends, there appears to be this subconscious suggestion to keep me separate from their other friends.

It feels funny that so many people think I am cool for my quirkiness. People value me for my blunt honesty. I have the knowledge and fun-lovingness of a party kid, making me great at parties.

So my thought is...

If I'm so cool, why am I not included?

THE ANSWER...AND DOES IT MATTER?

I would not be an intelligent person if I did not get my own flaws...or other people. The sad fact is that people are all about image. How people appear on the outside is how they actually are.

I put out different images to different people. To my co-workers, I'm gay...period. They can't be around a person who society has brainwashed them into disliking (in an ironic twist, they have also been brainwashed into getting head from anyone who they haven't slept with...intriguing conflict for those silly straights). To the clubgoers, I'm immature...and worse...black. While it's completely okay for a white boy to make a complete ass out of himself for fun, I however cannot. I cannot hook up with anyone. And it is assumed that immature=poor. Colors must stay separate. As for my friends, well, it is all about the good impression for the potential significant others.

These thoughts appear to be the way people think. They always seem to be worried about what someone else thinks. As long as you are happy with yourself, it doesn't matter what someone else thinks.

It doesn't matter. That sentence sums up what I learned in the rave scene. Forget what you are brainwashed into thinking. Forget what other people will think. Forget boundaries. None of it matters. What matters is that you are happy with yourself...whether you are liked or not. That matters.

I remember when I first moved to Jonesboro. I was a shy, insecure boy. It took years to get to where I am now. It took good friends to peer me out of my shell. It took a lot to get me to feel comfortable being gay. I'm still getting used to being black. I would go through the good and bad again to be whom I am now: a nice confident man.

CONFIDENTALLY ALONE

It is said that the most ambitious people are people who...in order to achieve their dream...have to be alone. All that matters is getting what will make them happy. So if they have to step on toes, so be it. If people dislike them for thinking outside the norm, so be it. As long as they go after what they want on their own terms then they are living.

The rave scene allowed me to get to that point. I was happy. And the effects can be seen now. I got the degree. I had the boyfriend. I have the book...and the options that come with it.

The accomplishments were done by me. I am very close to moving. My thoughts turn to he fact hat it was done by me being true to myself. It was me going against what the majority think of me. It was me doing what I wanted.

I was not being a leader. I was not just being a follower or being someone's sidekick. I was being an individual.

I was at the deli yesterday. A nurse came in to get a baked potato. As I delivered it to her table, she looked at me and asked:

"How do you do it?"

I frowned at her.

"You're always so happy."

I looked at her. I was pretty sure my checks got red. I smiled.

Just like my ex-co-workers at the Jonesboro McDonald's, she was after me for what made me happy. And what made me happy...was doing what I felt would make me happy...even if people disliked me. And what made me happy was being comfortable as a gay black man with goals accomplished and his dreams (and possibilities) ahead of him.

Diego (last column before the California move)


 

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