With Spring Break ’97 in the books, the boys and I carried through the semester with ease. That May, they’d all be graduating except for Dylan, Josiah and I. I’d secured a job for the summer, working in video for a performance clutch company. But before that began in July, I took Young Life guys to Windy Gap for summer camp.
I’ll keep the recap of that week short in saying it was the wildest week of camp I’ve ever experienced. With the combination of deep talks, drama, fights and feuds — I can only say that it was the Lord himself helping me through that week.
When I got back, I had a day to prepare for the new job. The first day was good, getting accustomed to the space and the list of projects the intended for me to do over the next month. 18 or so videos, most of which were product promos. And by the end of the first week I had them done. Impressed by the rate I worked, the bothers who own the company were struggling to give me projects to keep me occupied, so a majority of my time was spent on YouTube. I was spending that summer alone, Josiah was interning at Young Life Southwind. I ended up developing some trust issues after feeling like I’d been forgotten by my friends who were still in Columbia that summer. There were group messages I was excluded from and almost every day I’d reach out to friends asking to hang or to see what people were doing with little to no response. An almost daily occurrence, I would see stories and posts of the friends I’d try to hit up, seeing them out hanging with everyone else. I quietly grew anger towards that. I felt forgotten and unwanted.
I didn’t wait long to make that known to my friends, and I tried addressing it head on. Though, not much changed. I started forcing myself to suppress those feelings since the start of senior year was approaching. And as Josiah returned home, I started senior year.
For Young Life this year, I was set to be team leader. A responsibility that I felt unequipped in and one that made me stressed beyond belief from my fear of failure. Nevertheless, the team and I went headfirst into the year. And in the first few months, we saw more growth than much of the previous year.
With the combination of school, Young Life and my newly contracted work with the same company, I had little to no free time during the day. Josiah had stopped leading Young Life and was to graduate in December, so he had a lot of free time on his hands. The combination of my constantly moving and working lifestyle with his 5th year vibe did not mix well. I got consistently irritated with him. We held short tempers and passive aggressive tendencies toward each other.
Not all our time was bad though. We we’re brothers and acted more like siblings than anything. Amongst the bad attitudes, we were still there for each other in those late night talks. I’d also grown friendships with the boys in the Playstation party. Josh, Dan, John and Branson had become close friends to me solely from playing video games and talking in party chat.
I hadn’t spent much time with the Spring Break ’97 boys since most had graduated. So in turn I made closer friends in the Sophomore and Junior classes that were involved with Young Life at USC. I loved being around them, but there was the sense that I was in a completely different stage of life than them and I had this feeling that those friendships wouldn’t last long because of it. I chose to emotionally distance myself from most. The looming fear of graduation and post-grad had me distancing myself from others even more. I wanted to be prepared to leave the people I loved with little to no emotional damage, so I tried to protect myself, keeping my head down, attempting to drown myself with work. Young Life felt like a chore as the routine of club, campaigners and contact work were exhausting me after school and work. I loved the guys that came around and hoped and prayed for them daily, but Young Life itself became a chore. And thanks to some drama late in the semester with some of the students, the team as a whole had to come together more than ever.
I won’t go into detail on the drama as it is not my place to disclose that. But it was the hardest time I’ve ever had as a leader while I had to cope with so many emotions and numerous eyes on my team and I. The stress and anxiety seemed never ending as it just built higher and higher. During this time I expressed a lot of negative feelings I’d had towards myself and my ability to be a good leader along with my ability to have little to no emotional capacity for anyone. I’d completely shut down emotionally with no highs or lows on either side of the spectrum. My area director encouraged me to seek therapy, as he had been since my freshman year, and gave me a recommendation. I was against getting any kind of Psychological help in fear of judgement or that I’d be put on anti-depressants. I knew I had anger issues and that I was depressed along with my anxiety. Therapy was the last thing I wanted.
I tried a few weeks by myself, attempting to battle the raw feelings on my own, but they pretty quickly tore me down. I’d lost all desire to be around people and felt like I was incapable of loving anyone or anything. And during this time I was unable to see that I was surrounded by so many people who cared about me, but instead there was blindness, I felt alone.
I wanted answers and to make sense of the way I felt, so after a few weeks I went to a therapist. I was embarrassed to go and almost walked out of the waiting room because I didn’t want to be seem as a broken record. I went nonetheless. Ken, that was my therapists name. He had a bald head and a kind smile, his voice pierced the silence in the room when we first sat down as he asked why I was there. It was such a wild combination of fear, anger, depression and confusion that I just told him, “I don’t know.” I told him that I had come looking for answers to why I felt the way I felt. That I’d been harboring so much anger and frustration, to a point where I felt unloved, that my depression had reached a breaking point where I couldn’t tell the difference between being happy and just not being depressed. In my shaky voice I held in tears saying, “I just want to be loved man. That’s all I want.”
I started therapy and went every week, Ken promised me we’d try and figure out what the fuck was wrong in my head (my words not his). Over the span of a few months, I told Ken everything I’ve written here and more. We talked about fears and goals, trauma, regret, girls I had crushes on and then some. This was the first time in my life where I’d opened up and talked about many of these things. And through verbalizing much of it, things started to make sense. I was happy to have someone that seemed to finally listen, even though I was paying him to. It was relieving to have a place where my emotions could be validated and healing could begin.
2020 rolled around and I was still going to Ken. Though we’d crossed much of the bridge into my heart, there were still some things I held onto, Ken knew this. But as February ran through, Ken and I reached a stalemate where we both agreed that I’d reached a good place emotionally and that the remainder of my healing would have to be done on my own. He told me he would be there whenever I needed, but that he saw real change and was hopeful in that I would be just fine without him. So I stopped therapy in February.
My life had since calmed down and it was time to start finalizing post-grad plans. And I had my eyes set on Tampa, Florida. Both my friends Josh and John lived there and I was searching for jobs in car culture down there. With spring break of senior year approaching fast, I made plans to head down to Tampa to explore and do some job hunting. But none of us could’ve been prepared for what happened soon after.
We’d heard about Coronavirus a few months before, assuming it to be another freak disease like Ebola. But as it spread across the globe, social panic ensued as schools, sports, stores and job opportunities closed. My parents drove to get my sister from NYC in March since it was Americas hot spot for COVID. They got her, and I went back to Brevard at the same time, fully prepared to stay there for over a year. Dad even gave us an apocalypse talk, claiming that we might need to band together to survive. He said all of this as a joke but there was always a sense of sincerity in his tone. I ended up losing the job opportunities I’d gotten and finished out my senior year with a subpar portfolio that I’m still surprised passed. It was the worst situation for me emotionally, as it was for many others, as I had just begun my emotional healing process. My family and I fought daily.
I’d started talking to a previous girl just before going home, and after a month in quarantine, I went to Georgia to visit her. She’d become an emotional crutch for me, I stayed with her and her family for a few days and it was wonderful. But a few weeks after, she ghosted. This, in combination with COVID stress, unemployment, quarantine loneliness, my car breaking and emotional uncertainty, caused me to fall apart. I refused to spiral down into a hole of depression so I called on anyone I could and within a few weeks I had calmed down. Over the following months I was given much needed time to reflect and assess the previous years, giving thanks for the time I’ve been gifted. Addressing the repeated and obvious notion that all I really wanted this whole time was to love and to be loved.
And now I write to you in present day, July 17th 2020, still trying to make sense of my own mind. Still unemployed and living alone, through this writing I’ve been able to better understand myself, my struggles and my story. I’ve confessed things here that I haven’t shared openly, and for the first time in my life, things are starting to make a little sense. This ongoing desire to love others has entered slowly back into my heart. With every word I’ve written, a drop of life has come along with it. I’ve started daydreaming again, fantasizing of ambitions and ideas. I’ve not breathed as deep as this since my first years walking with Christ, and a desire to love has become evident, shooting out of my heart itself. I’d be lying if I said I’m not fearful of losing it, I am, but I know things won’t always be this way. My life moves forward. Through words and writing I’ve been able to make some sense of the life I’ve lived and my own craziness. Though others may not know this story of mine, I hope that it continues to help me better understand my own life and why I am the way I am.
So in closing, I thank you for taking time to read these words. I don’t know who’s reading this, but I love you. I hoped to find the right words to make it emotional but why do that here? I’m still me, I’m still me and I’m still living my life, I’m still going. I’m crazy in my own respects and I know that better than anyone. So before I move on, I encourage you to be honest. Open up when you’re happy and when you’re sad. The bad times will pass and good ones are on the horizon. I don’t know what to do about this desire to love and to be loved. I urge you to scratch that itch. Take the uncomfortable leap and love someone, spend time with others and ask the hard questions. Stay up late and turn off the phones, make memories while you have time and always understand that your story is unique. You are you for a reason. We’re all imperfect, that’s what makes us lovable.
With love,
Hank