the other side of 25

“Just guys bein dudes”

#TheProm 💙 I know y'all are gonna get real tired of this content real quick so I PROMise this is the last one... pro(m)bably 😅

When I joked a couple weeks ago about this movie being "the only prom I remember attending," there was some darkness in my humor that I felt the need to unpack a bit, especially given the content of this wonderfully awesome project I got to be a part of 🌈 (Netflix’s The Prom)

[CW: Mental Unhealth; Mentions of Substance Use by a Minor (me)]

As a younger queer person who was still mostly ✨in the closet✨  the idea of prom terrified me in many ways. Not only because of its oddly matrimonial nature rooted in boisterous heteronormativity, but also because it felt like I had no other choice but to take part or miss out on a "necessary" teenage experience. The ironic thing is that, although I did take part in consecutive years, I ensured I was consciously unavailable for the events and ended up missing out on most of what transpired those nights almost a decade ago.

Attending as a "boy-girl" couple my junior year (shout out to Chech for being a dope beard 🥰) was far less outwardly stressful than attending senior year prom with my homie (love you and thank you @starseedangel🤘🏽), but both drove me to seek external stabilizers for my emotions which reacted to the eyes of parents and feeling the energy of their knowing that "one of these things is not like the others" 🧚🏼‍♂️

RE: Senior prom - You'd think that enlisting the ultimate homie (Samm Vega) to play my fake date for my parents (she matched her real date as well as myself 🕵🏻‍♀️) might have done well to put my mind at ease after leaving home, but that wasn't the case. As an empath, I actively felt disdain from a few of the other parents while we took pictures in the park (without my own life-givers present). I can recall how it was as if, at times, some adults were trying to keep it a secret that they were strategically cutting the gay kids in the group out of their frames. Don't worry, we did have those on our side who helped to capture our moments 😎

Though I'm not the first dumb kid to take an edible I wasn't prepared for, I hope that this story can help whoever it finds to make room for reflection before allowing routine maintenance to dictate their actions. This is especially for those who similarly seek self-medication as a form of coping. The problem is not the vehicle but the intention. I was a 17-year-old who felt the need to protect himself from the opinions of authoritative figures in my life ("adults"), and often achieved this feeling of safety through numbification 🥴 That familiar feeling of not being wanted and not belonging seeped sadness into me right before we headed off to our senior prom night, and so I removed myself (my mind) from the sadness I did not want to feel.

Thankfully, over time I've been able to learn other (better) methods of dealing with the radiating negative energy of others. All this backstory to say, as a kid I did not have any tools to healthily cope with the animosity most young queer folx face growing up (like our friend “Emma” faced in Indiana). Now, as an educator who has worked with young artists of varying backgrounds, I feel a responsibility to try and be a good example of the adult I needed when I was fumbling through my emotional disarray of gay teen angst 🥺 For me, that example starts with allowing myself to learn from and forgive the more regrettable decisions in my past.

It's crazy to think that at such young ages we learn so quickly how to build walls within ourselves which seek to protect us from the more unpleasant moments of our realities. Humans are cunning innovators when it comes to survival, though; so, really we're just doing what we've always done. I'm extremely grateful to have been able to experience a prom the way it was meant to be: dancing, singing, and sweating my makeup off until the early morning 🥳 This production has given me the invaluable opportunity to reflect on and pay respect to part of my past that led to this present moment.

If you're a student and you're reading this, please know that it really does get better. Not because that's just how the saying goes, but because YOU will ✨MAKE✨ it better. You are strong and beautiful and you are so much more courageous than you give yourself credit for. You inherently hold within you the power to make meaningful change in your life and community. Never doubt that 💪🏽