Journalismfinal2018v2

The Ring Of Keys Effect

A Collection Of Grapic Memories

By Sheldon Stires

The Ring Of Keys Effect The more I look at my life the more I ask myself how I didn’t know I was gay. I recently looked through a box of papers spanning from kindergarten to sixth grade and inside I found possibly my first ever writing assignment. I stared down at the lined paper with the skyline, the plane line, the ground line and the worm line, with the paper titled, where I will be in 30 years. The paper read “I will be old. Probably married to a girl and have kids and I want to teach.” I ended up thinking a lot that night in bed will listening to a Lady Gaga song. I realized I wasn’t the same boy I was 10 years ago. I realized I didn’t want to do sports anymore or hang out and play soccer with all the boys during recess. Then I realized I never wanted to do any of those things that everyone did. I would rather stay on the playground and run around and go down the slide, I wanted to swing on the swings and run in the fields and pick dandelions and watch the seeds fly off down the hill. I wanted to be different.

I never liked boy things, I did a lot of boy things but, I never liked them. I was a Cub Scout for 5 years until I realized I was there for the friends and well if I’m being 100% honest, arts and crafts. I look back at those years and think about why I did that. I think it was because I wanted to feel like I was contributing to something or that I felt like I was helping this world.

The truth was I often got bored of selling eighteen dollars popcorn right outside of King Soopers where you could just go inside and buy 3 dollar popcorn. I got tired of taking bike rides to parks I got tired of collecting badges cause they never meant anything to me. Even when I had somehow earned the “arrow of light” it sits somewhere in a cardboard box now and I don’t even know what it should meet to me. I didn’t even try to earn anything to me cause nothing in cub scouts meant anything to me. I wanted to do something that meant something to me and I tried multiple things and I never found anything I liked until middle school Besides cub scouts, I never was into other typical boy things. Of course, I thought hot wheels where cool and fun to play with but I lost interest in them after a while. I liked Disney a lot. I wanted to watch Disney movies all day. My favorites being Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, and 101 Dalmatians. For some reason, Cinderella spoke out to me most. Maybe it was because as a kid I loved the idea that ordinary magic happens every single day or maybe it was that she got everything she wanted by being a nice person. She was always my favorite and I never knew why. But Disney was a huge part of my life I loved everything about it, mainly being that good thing come to good people. I even loved Disneyland some of my best memories came from walking down Main Street and walking through the castle. Childhood fantasies and some continue with us as memories and some stay behind but, a woman in a blue dress always would stand out to me.

I will never forget the first time I was called gay. This is one of my Ring of Keys moments as it was the first time I was told that I was different and that I would never be accepted in their straight guy world. I had just moved to that new school and the new year had just started. I had been at that school for the last few months the previous year and had made some friend but, they all ditched me which I was sadly used to. I remember walking into room 405, the sixth-grade classroom at Walter Woodward Elementary and staring at the bland grey wall in front me while the teacher taught us PEMDAS. Mr. Berchtold had taught us Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally to help us remember PEMDAS and oddly it worked. I had eventually made a small group of friends and I usually only hang out them. I had dropped something on the ground and this kid looked up at me and stared at me and said “why the hell are you so gay, you see here fag god made me an awesome person and he made you a gay little fag, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sheldon, you’re in my way.

The Ring Of Keys Effect My immediate reaction was to tell someone which I did and that resulted in both of us talking to Mrs. Robinson the vice principal. He got called in and she sat down and she talked.

She asked what had happened and he told her only a third of what had actually happened. I never got the chance to tell my side of the story because she never let me speak. It baffles me how easy it was that he just got away with something like that. I walked back to room 405 with everyone questioning him about what had happened while I stared at that plain grey wall with emptiness roaming around my head. What was worse is this was only the first of many problems at this school. what was even worse is that it was only October and I had another seven months to spend with these people.

Walter Woodward was a K-8 school so I would have the no new people to try to become friends with and no escape from the plain grey covered walls that I had come to hate staring at. I became depressed in seventh and eighth grade not wanting to go to school because I would have to deal with people calling me names and spreading rumors about me.

What was worse is my best friend had moved away and my other friend started hanging out with a person I had come to hate (even though now we’re best friends.) I was truly alone now and for the rest of seventh grade, I walked around the dead field for what seemed like hours when it was recess or lunch. This is when I really did start to hate myself for who I had become.

But like everything else in life middle school ends and then comes High School. I was ready for high school though. I was ready for new beginnings and a new environment. I had noticed on my schedule I was placed into Intermediate Theatre. The previous years I had come to love musical theatre and musicals but I didn’t think I was good enough to skip a class. I had walked in on my first day and for the first time in a while, I had found somewhere where I belonged. Mrs. Coyan possibly the greatest Theatre teacher I’ve ever had and when I go up to visit I always make it a point to stop by and see whatever show she does. High school made me more proud to be who I was and happier. I eventually started telling everyone who I really was. I then was met with the news that I would be moving to Huntington Beach.

I didn’t know how to react cause this was literally the second time I had to start all over. I’d have to meet a whole new group of people. The thing that scared me most is I would have to come out to a whole new group of people. What terrified me is I didn’t know how people would react here. I had walked in terrified on my first day making sure to text all my friends that morning so I at least had someone to talk to. I then walked into A24 for CP English 2 and met Ms. Trelease. Sadly I was switched to a different class but I always had the odd thought I would meet her again. The time of day I dreaded most came and it was lunchtime. I sat outside the I building for what seemed like forever and then this girl with pink hair asked where food was and I’m guessing you know who this is so I’ll leave this here.

In March of 2017, I saw a show titled Fun Home, It was the first time I had ever seen a gay character on a stage. Alison Bechdel’s story really hit me hard and made me spend hours staring up at my ceiling thinking about my own life. I had realized that It was my turn to be who I was with everyone in my life. The weekend before finals I told my parents. I walked up while they were sitting downstairs with fear in my eyes and wanting to literally vomit. So, I told them and they were fine with it. If it weren’t for experiencing Fun Home and seeing how hiding who you are can really hurt another person you love, I probably would have never come out.

The Ring Of Keys Effect And now I’m at the end of my junior year with a thousand stories that I can go on and on about but, I want to leave you with this. If you have ever been that person who has called someone a fag and you knew that you were picking on them. I want you to sit back and ask yourself what is wrong with you and its people like you that made me feel the way what seems like many years ago. I want to know why you would even use that word when you don’t have the right to make a person feel like there any less than you. When you use a word like that it scares people’s memories. It makes them think why. I always wonder why people will call someone gay for doing something or whisper “so gay” when they see something they’re not used to. Here’s the thing, we know were gay so tell us something we don’t know.