Okay I guess I’ll start at some of my earliest memories. As a small child I was a normal goofy energetic kid. I was youngest of three, but the large age gap between us caused us to not be as close. I liked to be funny and make people laugh it was enjoyable to see the reactions on people. Looking back I can tell I was craving attention, Hell I sometimes still need that even now. But for the most part I was a normal kid.

In school I was similar, I loved to get a reaction from students or teachers, but I also knew when to stop and shut up too. I would remember myself as being a bit of a class clown. I was a good student as well, but I was remedial in my reading (not something I recognized initially only looking back).

For all my fun and playfulness actions. I really didn’t have many friends as I would see it. My first was Juan, in 3rd grade, we used to hang out on the swings and make up dumb rhymes. We were friends but only at school, and we were not really close either. I ran into him yrars later he was a mechanic and he still recalled our interactions.

By three time I got to fifth grade I meet a kid named Daniel. Once we talked a bit we instantly clicked and connected. It was a great friendship and we were inseparable. Looking back I suspect he was my first crush, I was ignorant of those feelings at the time and definitely didn’t know anything about being gay either. I remembered him as a handsome kid, hair slicked to the side and always dressed nice and a beautiful smile when I made him laugh.

My earliest memory of anxiety happened when Daniel invited me to his birthday party at the trailer park a good ways away from my house. I told him I would have to ask my parents,but I never did. I don’t fully understand why I did that. I could have been nervous that parent would actually say no, it could be I was nervous about being in a new environment and strangers at his party, it could have been I was unprepared for a friendship to leave the confines of the school. Or maybe my later suspicion I was crushing on him and it was too much to quick. I really don’t know.

As fifth grade came to a close, Daniel revealed to me he was leaving, he was moving with this dad, I think it was in mexico,  but out of town for sure. We were both noticeably sad. I remember seeing his eyes shining with tears forming, I was likely the same. We hugged and said goodbye.

While I handled that situation well at the moment, weeks later I was rummaging through my partners stuff. I found a tape of Elton John. My mom loved hiis music. I took a listen and I enjoyed it too. Until I got to the song ‘Daniel’. Holy crap, it opened me like a biblical flood. I sobbed my little eyes out it was hurting my belly. All that emotion came and was drowning me in my own tears. I played it repeatedly and thought about my friend leaving. I was mostly sad but I did have a range of emotions, anger and fear too. I basically cried myself into exhaustion. I did that all alone. I didn’t have any other friends, Hell I didn’t even allow him to be more than a school friend. I did not tell anyone about it either. I sunk in my room and cried deeply until I was empty.

The end of fifth grade was also the start of middle school then. So I was about to go into a new environment. On top of that I would later find out redistricting would cause about 90% of my classmates to go to the other middle school than I was going to. With the absence of Daniel. also it was a scary experience I was about to embark on. It asso marks a severe shift on my personality too as I was gregarious, energetic, funny and loved attention. I would retract and withdraw inward and become subdued. It was a formative time for me and it shaped me into who I am now…