Who am I?

“Who am I?” is the question I ask myself nearly every day as I get on the bus to high school in a city 45 minutes away by bus.

“Why am I here? What am I doing?”

I look at the questions that our teacher gives us–questions on basic things about ourselves. This is freshman year. You know no one, and you are no one.

I look at the first question: What is your name?

So far, so good.

What is your favorite color?

This is hard.

What is your favorite sport?

What?

How do others describe you?

How would I know?

How do you describe yourself?

Uh… That’s what I want to know.

You see, I’m not like most of the other teenage kids. I don’t have a lot of friends. I didn’t come from some major prep school. I didn’t come from a super gangster school where fights were everywhere (as my friend described it). I didn’t even go to a well-known private school. I came from a private school–next to a public school–where my classmates and I were laughed at and made fun of us as we walked over there to take a friendly group picture. We stood in silence, taking their blows as we slowly died of shame and embarrassment inside.