Alex Johnson Derverd 4th Hour FCAs: Complexity of thought is articulated and developed within the narrative structure.

. Begins with uncertainty and comes to a resolution (a new way of thinking or affirmation of a former belief). At least one paragraph is dedicated to explaining how this affected your line of thinking. Correct grammar and punctuation. ` Philosophic Contemplation Middle school is the closest thing on this Earth to Hell. For three years, you are confined with around a thousand people in one building, travelling with a group of 300 of them for the entirety of your sentence. A break from the social norm of Aeropostale, North Face, and Jordans are met swiftly with punishment. The intelligent and advanced are mocked by their peers for their dedication to academia, and those who are just discovering their sexuality, or coming to terms with it, are relentlessly destroyed by antagonists. Being of the last of those, specifically, contributed to my middle school experience marking the lowest points of my life. Seventh grade English must have been the lowest circle of Hell, as for most of the year, two boys mocked me with near passion near to zealotry. Everyday they would lean in to me across a row of desks and ask me why I wasnt dead yet, why I was still here, because really, who loves a fag? It wasnt until a girl in that class disrupted a lesson one day by standing up against them that I had my seat in class moved. My fear of letting either of my tormentors know that their suspicions were true paralyzed me; to me, admittance of my sexuality was a sign of weakness, and to be able to endure them, that simply would not stand.

.The worst of the emotional and psychological abuse came from not my Luciferian peers, however, but my perpetually ignorant parents. I can remember in 2008, on the day of President Obamas first inauguration, my dad talking to a co worker on the phone. Im not entirely sure what was said on the other line, but in a conspiratorial tone, I could hear my dads response: The last thing we need is for people like them to be able to get married now. Four years later, when Washington legalized gay marriage, my dad called it one of many signs of the moral degradation of America. Comments like these circulated my house for years, and all the while my parents never knew that their own son was one of them. It was never an outright I hate gay people from either of them, but small comments like the ones above were commonplace. They would change the channel every time a gay couple was on T.V., as my little sister didnt need to see that. I was always asked if a girl had caught my eye, never a guy, or just anyone. In my home environment, I never heard any affirmation from my parents that my sexuality was okay, or at the very least, acceptable. My sister would whisper support to me at night, when Id watch movies with her in her basement bedroom, both of us afraid that one of those who helped raise me would deny their own creation. The adamant stance my parents held against homosexuality of any demonstration caused me to try to bury this hidden aspect of my even deeper throughout my last year of middle school and first two of high school to even admit it to myself.

It took five years, from sixth grade, to my sophomore year of high school, to admit to myself that I was gay, and one more to come out to my family. Oddly enough,

it was my youth leader at church who I told first of my self-loathing, in my freshmen year. Her reassuring words were like ambrosia, something I had craved and desired for years. We met once a month over the course of two years, each time discussing why I was okay being me.

The true moment of self- acceptance came at no spectacular moment. I was sitting in the art room, working on a piece, and Dog Days Are Over, by Florence and the Machine, came on my current playlist. Im not quite sure why the song, tha t I had heard hundreds of times over, only then spoke to me; but at the strongest point of the chorus, when it is simply Florence singing leave all your love and your longing behind, you cant carry it with you if you want to survive, I knew then that I had to abandon all the unwarranted guilt inside of me. I couldnt grasp at the longing to be the son that my parents wanted for me. The pain of hiding who I was daily was literally killing me, as during my sophomore year I suffered from insomnia and chronic depression. But through the persistent consolation and support offered by my friends and youth leaders, as well as the periodic words of wisdom offered by Florence, I eventually mustered the courage to come out to my family.

There comes a certain desperacy to have your secret be discovered when one tries so hard to keep it hidden; Id like to believe the moment when discovery is most needed is called, as Uncle Iroh from The Last Airbender put it, the crossroads of destiny. A year ago I stood there; I could have continue living my life in an unhappy but accepted state of paranoia, where I was constantly in fear of being discovered, or I could finally accept who I am. I had to ask myself who I was, and what I wanted with

my life. While I had known the answer to these questions for years, in retrospect, I am ashamed of how long it took for me to finally assimilate the answers into myself. Making the latter choice, to risk my already-strained relationship with my family to finally reach self-acceptance, was one of the best decisions Ive ever made.

Since coming out to my parents, my outlook on life has improved drastically. I do my best not to be flamboyant about my sexuality, but if questioned, I shall respond honestly. I have gained courage in myself, and I no longer hesitate to take action when I find myself in a situation where I know the right path to take, but may have to create a few days of conflict to speak my mind. While this may sound self-conceited, I no longer care what people think of me. I see now that my life is my own, and the only source of judgement I should fear is from me (and my dearest friend Rachel Kloosterman). Where I had previously found myself unsure of my own decisions and sense of self, I now view the world through the lens of self-assurance. I can see now that my fear of others had controlled me, and I valued to approval of my family more than my approval of myself. I will not allow myself to be controlled in such a way again.