I was a restless and sensitive kid. Of course, looking back, I know that it was partially my ADHD, which wasn't diagnosed till I was 15, and that I wasn't medicated for till I was 18. But more than that, it was the trapped potential energy of growing up in a suburb when the larger world was so exciting and full of novelty and adventure, but lay just out of reach. I remember coming out of movie theaters or concerts feeling like a profoundly changed person from the experience. I used to stay up late into the night painting and writing and singing, lighting things on fire and playing guitar til my fingers bled, getting lost in different fantasies. I remember the restlessness feeling like torture. It was lightning in a bottle, but I was the bottle, getting shocked by it constantly. I never had a clear idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up, I just knew that I wanted to experience the world, as much of it as I could.
In high school, for a brief moment I planned to do an exchange program somewhere in China, probably because it was as far away as I thought I could possibly get. I fantasized about disappearing, reinventing myself, and never again feeling tied down by my small town and family and school. And I opened myself up, the rough and vulnerable parts, freely to anyone who would listen. It was like my chest was cracked open, and my heart was exposed to the air. Everything stung, but it felt like the only way that I could be, like it was the only way to experience life in all the ways that I needed to. I fucked things up, I was bad at things, I practiced til I got it right, I made messes, and I was myself unapologetically. I did all of those things publicly.
