What I Think and Feel at 27

In Fall of ’21, Fitzgerald wrote an essay for Brentano’s Book Chat titled “What I Think And Feel At 25.” 19 years later, he would die at the ripe, old age of 44 from a heart attack, “the poor son-of-a-bitch.” His essay starts with two encounters in which he openly expresses vulnerability and a desire to discuss its effects on life, but the uninterested parties, a few years his senior, leave after having given their own little speeches about death, divorce, and health. In typical writer fashion, Fitzgerald decides to create an essay of morbid realities he’s learned as “a middle-aged man” after being ignored by his peers; our words will always be written, even if we don’t get to say them.

The average life expectancy of a human body in its natural, intended state is far lower than its unnatural, cultural state. Even though he died at a young age, Fitzgerald wrote about the type of person he wanted to be when he was sixty despite a life expectancy of early 50s as was normal for the time period. He writes as a middle-aged man, while I, two years their senior, craft an essay of morbid realities I’ve learned as someone who has their whole life ahead of them and a lifetime of travels and experiences behind them. To my dismay, it starts much the same, “the first five years [of my life] seemed to go all right- but the last twenty! They have been a matter of violently contrasting extremes.” 

To be callow is to be inexperienced and immature. To be morbid is to be interested in “unhealthy” and disturbing subjects like death and disease. In his essay, Fitzgerald makes a point to separate that he writes no longer of the frivolities of callowness, but rather the maturity of the morbidities he knows. With “my whole life ahead of me,” I sit and write immaturely of the morbidities I know. 

I feel I am intrinsically linked with morbidities. The intersections of my identity, disabled, Queer immigrant, invoke images of sorrow, oppression to Hollywood execs, but to me, the story I have created is one I am proud of. There are other elements of my identity which add more intersections, writer, photographer, assault survivor, and adoptee. Much like the history of Queer people and immigrants, it is a complex story of overcoming repeated obstacles, it is a story of resilience, survival, and it is a story that I hope will inspire someone, anyone.

My inexplicable interests with 9/11 and the Holocaust started at a young age. I often watched movies and documentaries on these topics for reasons still unknown to me. I watch Little Miss Sunshine and Bridge to Terabithia when I need to cry, because these movies guarantee a cathartic release of stress through tears. I travel to New York and other cities to see theatre and opera and artists that bring me to tears for the same reason, because sometimes, my bedroom and surroundings are too familiar and scary, and I need to escape.

“Skipping that long list of mistakes which passes for my boyhood,”  I road-tripped to the grand canyon where I contemplated life, my history, and my identity and all their complications, coming back after a week feeling refreshed and ready to tackle things within my control before they slipped.

And then they slipped, because I asked for something better, knowing I deserved something better. Some didn’t believe me and others sympathized, but there was no resolution. Through my experiences, I learned when to speak up, and when to keep quiet, but because I spoke up, better things fell further away. “I’d be perfectly doing just what I wanted to do,” when I shared my stories and experience “when somebody would begin shaking his head and saying “…you mustn’t go on doing that. It’s- it’s morbid”” when a warning of the morbid results for coming forward would have been more beneficial. Regardless, I decided to commit to speaking up against abuse in the Baltimore theatre community and against abuses and ignorance displayed from coworkers. The morbid results have been difficulty finding employment in my career field and passion and difficulty gaining the trust of a guilty community who expects my feelings to be hurt when I experience repeated instances of previous traumas.

I am well aware my experiences and how I presented them have directly affected me and are self created morbidities. I am a person with a specific story that is still being told, and as long as I can speak and write, it’ll be told in all its joy and sorrow. Much like Fitzgerald, I often find myself displeased and easily bored with meeting people who always talk about their experience despite not having any. As Holden Caulfield lovingly called them, “phonies.”

Having got in wrong with many of the readers of this article, I will now proceed to close. If you don’t agree with me on any minor points you have a right to say: “Gosh! He certainly is callow!” And turn to something else. Personally, I do not consider that I am callow, because I do not see how anybody of my age could be callow. For instance, I was reading an article in this magazine a few months ago by a fellow named Ring Lardner that says he is thirty-five, and it seemed to me how young and happy and carefree he was in comparison with me…The older I grow the more I get so I don’t know anything.”

I am trapped in a tiny corner of a large world surrounded by numerous others living an individual history as complex as my own. There’s a lot encapsulated in my 27 years, but I have so much more to learn. If I had completed this at twenty five, “it might have been worth reading,” and I might have gotten into Columbia.

A Sense of Protection

Every man, per James Truslow Adams’ The Epic of America, deserved a life that was “better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” While some viewed this as wishful thinking, many adopted the view that all it took was a little perseverance and hard work.

Their dreams might have differed in detail, but the general goal was a successful job, a family, and a house with a white picket fence.

A fence creates a feeling of privacy, security, and defense. Fences can prevent peepers peering at your petunias, prevent unwanted animals from ripping out radishes, as well as deter burglars from gaining access to your house.

In 2013, a gay couple from Texas comes home to discover “burn FAG” on their fence after being denied a venue for their wedding reception, according to the Dallas Voice.

A post in an Ocean Beach, California community board requests that somebody paint over a fence that had the words “Bisexual” and “Fag” spray painted on its façade.

The Italian art of fencing is a sport created during the Renaissance period. It uses two swordsmen, two rapiers, and a lot of skill. Opponents face off against each other and attempt to score points by touching rapier to opponent.

In September of 2014, Jackson, Mississippi news reporters shared a story of “Say no to gay marriage. Kill them gays.” being written in chalk around the area of the governor’s mansion.

The real skill in fencing is not the ability to score points, but rather it is the ability to defend yourself from your opponent’s rapier. Special suits are crafted to offer protection against an opponent’s thrusts, but the first line of defense is your own ability to deflect your opponent.

Fox 5 DC shared coverage of the phrase “Down With the Gay agenda” painted in Dupont Cirlce, a premier gay area of Washington DC. Because many of the residents of the area are LGBT, the news later reported the message had been updated from anti-gay to anti-gun. After a few hours, the new message read “Down With the GUN agenda,” with “GUN” being a bright red addition to the previously blue statement.

The offices and classrooms of Hartford stages saw numerous anti-gay messages painted in their main building located in Hartford, Connecticut on March 28, 2016. Along with the painted messages, tables were broken to leave a message.

Anti-gay hate happens everywhere and every day. Whether it’s a verbal attack in the halls of the local high school, or it’s a message spray painted on the fence of a gay couple, the prevalence is clear. With the legalization of gay marriage in all 50 states, it seems there has been a spike in the anti-gay hate that has been occurring. This is the opposite of what might have been expected by many.

On October 10, 1998, the New York Times shared a story titled, “Gay Man Beaten and Left for Dead; 2 Are Charged.” James Brooke reported a story on a young man named Matthew Shepard who was lured away from a bar by two straight men, beaten, burned, tied to a fence, and left for dead. The event occurred in Laramie, Wyoming, and it later became the subject of a play titled The Laramie Project.

The New York Times published another story about Matthew Shepard on October 13, 1998. The headline was simple, “Murdered for Who He Was.” The message was clear; Matthew Shepard was killed because of his sexuality.

“In the United States, for all its consecration of equal rights, the members of minority groups have often had to pay a terrible price just for being who they are…but other groups have been the victims of that murderous impulse too, and homosexuals have always been among them.”

I remember my elementary school had phallic graffiti on the side near the kindergarten playground. At the time, it was unclear who did it, or why.

When I was in high school, I faced relentless comments from my peers because of my sexuality. I would see movies where the word “faggot” and “queer” were written in Sharpie onto the lockers of gay students, and I would have to tell myself, “at least I didn’t have it that bad” to normalize the things that were happening to me. I watched television shows where students were smashed against doors and cafeteria floors because they liked someone of the same gender.

Novels were written about the kids who would hang themselves because they couldn’t stand the bullying they endured every day.

As a child, I dreamt of being an actor. Now, I dream of being a professor of American Literature at a college in Santa Fe. I only want four things in Santa Fe; I want a job, a mini cooper, a dog, and a house with a vine covered fence.

Lines and Memories: A Timeline

I grew up writing. So did a lot of other people. I’m not saying I’m special, because I grew up writing, I’m just saying that’s how I grew up.

At my babysitter’s house, I would practice writing the alphabet on large chart paper. Tedious. Did this teach me the alphabet, or did it teach me tracing and imitation? There were lines, curves, and circles. It wasn’t art. I had no patience. In elementary school, I kept daily journals in hand-me-down marble composition books. There was a mixture of practice the alphabet and “what are you doing this weekend?” type prompts. In third grade, I learned cursive, or as the more professional will call it, script. Much like writing the alphabet on large chart paper, it was more curves and circles with a few lines. It still wasn’t art, and, in my handwriting, it looked more like a frazzled EKG than “the Declaration of Independence”. In third grade, I was told that cursive will be the most important skill I learn, because I will only be allowed to write in cursive. I was scared, because my cursive was very bad. How could I be professional if my cursive was illegible? With fifth grade, I learned typing. My previous encounters with computers were computer games like Reader Rabbit and Putt Putt, but those didn’t require correct finger placement on a keyboard. To beat Reader Rabbit, you just needed to know how to click the mouse and use an index finger. Middle school saw more intensive journals (“Is Romeo a STATIC or DYNAMIC character?), BCRs, and a new language, Spanish. In high school, I was introduced to the trauma of 3 page essays and procrastination. When it came time to go to college, it was obvious I should do something related to English, but what should I do exactly?

I picked English and Secondary Education, because I knew I wanted to teach. What I didn’t know, however, was I didn’t want to teach public school. I made it halfway through teaching my full-time internship, before I started looking at grad school. I decided grad school was going to be the next move for me, because I wanted to teach at a collegiate level. The education in public schools is crucial and beneficial, but the education I experienced at Towson University taught me more about why I love writing. Halfway through my final semester at Towson, my supervisors met with me, and told me they were removing me from my teaching internship. They cited “a lack of professionalism,” but what they meant was I was wasting their resources by not interviewing with local schools or taking the Praxis exam. In my mind, I decided grad school was the next step. In their mind, my decision meant I didn’t care about teaching. In my second take of my final semester I took creative non-fiction. Prior to taking this class, my writing was based off requirement, analysis, and research. The three page papers of high school were nightmares of the past that turned into 18 page reports of Baba Iaga and rooms with a view. Creative non-fiction, and more importantly, my professor, taught me writing could be fun even though it was required. I enjoyed writing and analysis (I really did, I’m weird), but I learned a lot by writing about myself. I would read essays by other authors and imitate their writing style. This taught me what type of writing I liked. I learned how to properly use footnotes, how to write minimalist, and how to incorporate experience and identity into my writing. By writing about depression, I learned how to manage and express my own struggles. Writing about anti-gay graffiti on fences helped me connect with my identity. Looking at the way my clothing choices and my daily habits have changed showed me how much more independent and comfortable I have become. My biggest weakness with creative writing is how little time I have spent doing it. I have been writing my whole life, but creative writing is a mere three months of work compared to my 22 years of life.

I have used my writing to learn about myself and to educate others. When I write, I want to not only teach myself about who I am, but I want to teach others too. It is easy for me to express myself through writing. I find writing to be a natural way to bring language to experience. It’s hard to talk about myself, because I have to find someone who wants to listen to me talk about myself, but writing about myself is purely personal and cathartic. Sometimes I will share my writing, but other times it is pushed aside to work on or uncover later. My hope is to keep writing. If I’m meeting new people, doing new things, and traveling to new places, I want to write about it. I can document with pictures, but pictures require you to remember too much about experience. In a picture, I know location. In writing, I know location, emotion, detail, and specifics. My writing doesn’t have to make me famous, it just needs to help me remember.