August 30, 2019
Okay, you’re right. It’s not quite true that I left because of computers. I stopped playing the oboe after I ran away and moved schools. Band was already well underway, after all, and I couldn’t join in partway through. They let me play the cymbal in one concert, but I basically gave up after that. We returned the rental oboe. I wouldn’t touch an instrument in all seriousness until well into university.
And really, during all that time, there was no sense of regret, no sense of loss.
Your dad bought you a pair of drumsticks after that concert, but while you played with them for a few weeks, you soon lost interest. You had moved on.
I had moved on.
I was trying to square being gay with being the type of person my parents would like. I was trying to figure out how to make friends after transfering into a school. I was trying so hard to settle down and just become someone, to just be born already.
You told your mom and Jay that, when you complained about karate in the future, they should remind you that you do enjoy it sometimes, that it just comes and goes. You just wanted to cling to something and have it stick.
Computers were all well and good. They certainly offered me a route to explore so much that I might otherwise have not. They got me Danny. They got me into furry. They got me into programming.
You’re still a furry. You still program. Hell, you still think about Danny. Does that not count as sticking?
Oh, it definitely does, don’t get me wrong. Some of the things I launched myself into did stick, even if some of them did not. I was too busy getting ready to be born to focus on what, I suppose.
And then, two weeks into my freshman year at high school, a few girls stopped me in the hall during my only free period and asked me to join choir with them.
And you said yes.
Lord help me, I have no idea why, but I did.