As Iâm writing this, itâs January first, 2016, 12:45 AM. So weâre 45 minutes into the new year.Â
As I did for 2014, I will now synopsize 2015. Sorry about the embarrassment youâre about to endure, whoops!
I began 2015 with Little Shop and transgender dysphoria blues (not the song). I think Little Shop really helped combat that, it made me forget about it. I was doing bad, it was a cold, cold winter and I was doing bad.
Sometime during that winter, I reconnected with Casper. He helped me. So much. Everyone else did too and you got the name Kipling from an anon from tumblr. Classy.
You came out to Mads after Casper came out to Mads on set, by the way, you met him painting details for Little Shop. He was great. God, was he great. Youâre still friends with him. He's the best.
Little Shop upped your friend count, too, with Mads and Craig and Karyn and Ollie and augh EVERYONE. You finally had a social group. You were a theatre kid.Â
Then spring break happened, over which you were chilling with Amy one day and acquired this guyâs Snapchat. You bonded over socialism (sigh okay it was communism but youâre not communist) and when you went to Aunt Michelleâs you talked to him literally nonstop. You were in love again! Not romantically, no way in hell, but you certainly were in love and you continue to be with Alec to this day. You talked about ever fathomable thing in the universe, he admired you in the most sophisticated and pretentious way possible and got you into the literature youâre into now.Â
You were super active in Inkblots, too. There was this one (super gay, mind you) poem submitted and as you were editing the magazine at the end of the year (dude you were asked to be editor your soph year too what) you saw that this poem was by this dude who fell asleep in your Spanish class named Tim. The next day you went up to him in Spanish and said you really liked his poem, eventually got his url on this trashbag of a website, and fanmailed him at 1 AM one night a bunch of links to short films. Your banter ensued and soon you were Skyping with him and this random kid from your World History class named Matthew, and this Homestuck (god help you) youâd always admired called Arthur and a pretty cute person, Gavin.
They carried you through finals week, into TF2 and GMod and late, late nights and sharing Quizlet flash cards for history. You started sitting by them in the mornings, hanging out with Timothy, you got to know him really well. You thought he was great.Â
During finals, you decided youâd share crew head position for next yearâs musical for paint. That was horrifying. Craig convinced you, you canât thank him enough.
You got got Bs and As and your last final was World History with Amy who had one final after that. She walked to your house after her last final and guess where you two went with your parents? Fucking Arizona. And New Mexico.Â
It was truly a fantastic trip, the thing that made some parts kinda sucky was your brain. You had your first true anxiety attack there, your first sensory overload there. Thatâs when brain stuff started but you enjoyed it nonetheless. Then you got home and bonded with squad more. Three, four AMs with you and Timothy and Arthur. Youâd Skype from seven or eight, Gavin and Matthew would get off at eleven and Arthur sometimes 1 or 2 and then it was you and Timothy and jesus it was nice. It was nice.
You went to Michigan which was nice and eventually Casper was added to the squad and went to English Studies Camp with Casper and you were in love with him too again, not romantically. You met the absolute best best peopleâ Drew the farm kid and Avery the bird dad and Colby who you tried to swoon on the first night (yikes I know Iâm being real though) and Isaac and Dâmorea and Wendy and Hudson was there with you too. This camp you entered in one of the biggest writing slumps of your life (you hadnât written since early May, it was late July)
To be honest with you, you were looking to fall in love and have like a gay fling at camp. At the time, you couldnât imagine anything that could be better than that but look! A thing better than that happened.Â
You got out of your writing slump entirely. You got recognized by all the professors you had, the head of that uniâs English professor emailed you and Casper after the camp thanking you two for coming. You wrote that anxiety poem and Dante with Casper, you two did a duet poem in under two days. Again, to be honest, everyone loved you. Of course everyone loved Casper more but you were his quirky weirdass sidekick and during the open mic night people screamed for you and loved you and everyone complimented you and wanted to be your friend and shit, they loved us, okay? They did. It was nice. The last day of your Poetry and Prose class, everyone read a poem or story and there were a lot of tears from students and teachers alike. It was like circle time but with poetry added so it was better.Â
Anyways, that camp was the best. One of the best experiences of your life hands down.
You got home and everything was hot and sticky (even though camp was hotter and stickier). You wrote through summer, then, kept bonding with squad and mostly Timothy if youâre being honest.Â
Then school came and that was fine. Squad was there. Marching band and color guard got you through it, marching band season was truly a fairytale, it was so fun. So fun.Â
But that ended and you had a lot of panic attacks, since Arizona itâd been getting worse. Guard helped you cope but that ended eventually and you were just kind of left in the dust, squad still talked daily but didnât call nearly as much, almost never. It was all studying. Youâd failed almost every test, and the first semester you got all one A, two Cs, and the rest were low, low Bs. Everything was kind of falling apart.
Parents didnât understand, panic attacks happened almost every day. You had a lot of people, though, you had theatre until Thanksgiving break and you couldnât be happier that you were a crew head for the paint crew. It was a marvelous experience and you had the absolute best crew you could ever ask for. You were also in NAHS, which was great and made you feel good about your arting skills.Â
And now youâre here. You had a physical and asked the doctor about a psych and youâre getting one, but your parents donât get it. You have someone you want to kiss and a fuck ton of people you know are there for you. You dyed your hair. If you werenât mentally ill, youâd be happier than ever.Â
Youâve been learning lately to be honest and to tell people what you think now because you never know how long youâll have them and what you have to tell them just might keep them around longer. Itâs been rewarding and you felt good about it. You have more absolute fucking fantastic friends than ever. Mads, Timothy, Matthew, Casper, Craig, Hannah, Alec and Amy are all people you consider best friends and you think thatâs excellent. Theyâre all people you can turn to for anything in any circumstance.
I hope that during 2016 you began to recover. And if recovering for you was continuing to exist, then holy fuck am I proud of you. I hope you are wiser in terms of yourself and in terms of the nature of psychology and psychologists.Â
Besides brain stuff, I hope you kissed someone. I hope you fell in love like you did in 2015 or like you did in 2014 or like you never have before. I hope the people who were here for you this year are still here for you. I hope your kindness rewarded you. I hope you created something beautiful.
I love you, and youâre reading this and because of that Iâm so proud and Iâm so glad. You survived and I love you.