Major note: this post is 100% inspired by the Kurtzgegat video “An Antidote to Dissatisfaction”! Here’s the link to it! An Antidote to Dissatisfaction – Bing video I highly recommend it!
Ever since I went into 6th grade, got ostracized by my best friend and was bullied, I realized the world around me isn’t what I thought it was. I remember telling my old best friend’s sister Avery that I wanted to switch schools. Ever since then, I’ve struggled with apathy. What’s the purpose of caring if the world around me sucks? What’s the point in trying if I hate my school and every day of my life? Well, after many, many years I’ve figured it out. It doesn’t matter how bad your situation is, you can always find some good in your situation (unless maybe you’re a Russian gulag prisoner).
I found good in multiple ways. One was in the people who live here. Now don’t get me wrong, like anywhere else, Gulf Breeze has its share of mean people, but I found my crowd. I went into high school thinking that I was the different one, that I was the only one who hated it here. One day, when I was sitting in Student Government Class, this senior Kyle who I had considered a perfect representation of the average Gulf Breeze High School student admitted that he hated it here, and that 99% of the people who pretend to love it here, actually do not. Another place I found good was in my gifted program. Now say what you want about gifted programs, but mine introduced me to my two best friends, for that, I am eternally grateful. Gifted was my refuge, the one part of my day that I always looked forwards to. No matter how bad of a day I was having, gifted always managed to make my day better. It introduced me to likeminded people and taught me how to be creative and problem solve.
Now, I said I had contradicting feelings and here they come. My town is in the deep south, I’m talking Bible Belt deep south. Because of that, there are a lot of homophobic and subtly racist individuals. A lot of the people here genuinely people that any form of homosexuality is wrong because of their religion. A lot of these people are incredibly caring people, but that changes the moment they know you’re LGBTQ, and for a lot of these people they believe that homosexuality is a sin and will send you to hell. The vast majority of these people want to “save people” even when it’s not their place. A lot of the boys here only support lesbians when they fit their fetishized ideal of what a lesbian couple should be- 2 conventionally attractive women, who are both hyper feminine, and just happen to like women. The racism here mostly takes the form of microaggressions. Snide comments and subtle racist jokes are the norm, and if people point them out, they’re called snowflakes. The thing is, if I’m a “snowflake” for caring about the rights for others and not wanting to let racist jokes slide, then so be it.
My hometown brought me my best friends, it brought me a pretty good education, but I also can’t wait to leave it and never, ever come back.
