8 houses, 10 schools, 6 phones, 2 dogs

My life has changed in so many ways, but the one thing that has always stayed the same is that I crave people.

No longer do I yearn for big crowds, or dance for eager eyes, or act for a big screen. Now I just want someone who will listen to me. So I do not feel crazy. I cling to the idea of being accepted. If not by everyone, maybe one would suffice.

So what does one do when they want to be listened to? They look, and look, and look for any audience they can find. Then when they find the voice that does not immediately shut them down, they hold it closer than they probably should and think about the consequences later.

When I was 14, I was placed in a room with 16 kids. We were stuck with each other and only each other for the next 4 years because in the last semester of 8th grade we could find the pattern in a group of shapes quicker than most.

Those 16 people were not my audience. They did not play the character of the bully, but anytime I raised my hand or looked confused, I immediately knew that I did not belong.

On my 17th birthday, I cried because none of the 16 people remembered, but they did remember how I was the last person to finish the calculus test.

I got so paranoid that I was convinced that the timbre of my voice or the way my hands moved when I spoke made me immediately unacceptable, and I needed to hide in the comfort of my laptop, because it was the only place where my voice and face were not judged.

On there, I had a friend who showered me with more love than I ever imagined I could receive. He listened to me cry and cry and cry about things I could never tell my therapist, and I comforted him about his biggest insecurities at a time in his life where he did not have anybody.

Then he wanted something from me that I could never give, and he cried and cried and cried until the guilt haunted me and I gave in. He knew the shame I felt about who I am and who I like, and how who I did not love brought me the deepest sense of shame.

Giving in was the easy part, backing out and leaving him for good was the hard one. “Just please, don’t resent me” was sent to me on June 22nd, 2023. His last words with me were him asking me to ignore the feeling in my gut, like he did two years before. That’s how I knew he was not my audience.

In that same space, in that same community, I had a friend who treated me like a little sister, who found me funny at a time where I was terrified at the sound of my own voice. I would stay up until 3:30 in the morning to talk to him about a new song that came out, or to send him a picture of his celebrity crush.

Because I loved talking to him, I thought we were practically the same person. Then I heard the most unforgivable things come out of his mouth, about women who were shaped like me, who talked like me, who acted like me.

Even on a computer screen talking to someone on the other side of the world, I still felt like that weird kid with the emotive face, who was the last person to finish the calculus test.

So, I could not help but take it personally. My anger issues became apathy. My personality became a distant memory. My baby face with round cheeks and a rosy blush became sunken and hollow, even to my 7-year-old cousin.

I hated myself for so long because I wanted this friend to be my audience. I wanted that boy, who made me cry myself to sleep every night because I did not like him back, to be my audience. I wanted those 16 kids who judged my every waking move to be my audience. I looked at the spaces that made me miserable, assumed that I was the problem, and that I needed to manipulate myself because who I actually was did not matter.

Then one day in early July on my basically empty campus I met a kid with my Hatsu Miku binder and a light green Buggie, and for the first time in 4 years I was invited to a birthday party. Suddenly the desire to be a martyr and to prove to the world how much it hurt me became the desire to get through the school week so I could go to the amusement park. The need to defend everything I like at 6 in the morning became listening to new music at Panera Bread, being so glad that memory was made with you instead.

I do not know if you will always be my audience. I do not know if one day we will get annoyed of each other and we will not be each other’s rock anymore. But now I have a friend who I can talk to at breakfast. Now I have a friend who can tell me about the guy she’s talking to in the middle of the night. Now I have a group of artists who thank me for the collages I post on my non-profit’s Instagram.

You might not be my audience because I am not a performer. I am not a character who has a default set of personality traits. Just like we both changed and forgave each other when we needed help, we will still be worthy of love and support even if we go our separate ways.

So, when I find myself getting anxious over a punctuation mark I used on a text, I will remember how two years ago I would have never imagined that I would find my people at a school near the place with the giant pizza downtown.