Logan+F’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2017

The speech I gave in class I didn't follow what I wrote I just talked. But this is what I wrote.

This is actually something that I’ve never really talked about with people before so hopefully it’ll be all fun and exciting. My friends mean the world to me. I’m sure many of you recognize some of the people that I hang out with at lunch and outside of school. There’s the people that I sit at my table with, the group of loud annoying teenage boys as we are seen either screaming, laughing, or playing spikeball and cornhole every lunch. Then there’s the group of people who I would say I would call my bestfriends. This group consists entirely of amexers or former amexers. With this group of friends I have learned so many things. I never knew that it was possible for a group of people to be so loud, or to go to in n out so many times and not be sick of it. Over the past year i’ve probably spent about 200 bucks at in n out with them and this summer I’ll probably spend even more than that. I learned what drama really was, and that drama may never end with them. But I also learned that it isn’t a bad thing to actually share your opinion and how you feel, whether it be during a truth circle on the spinny thing at Juanamaria Park or in someone’s car before school. And with this group of people I have begun to realize lots of things. Whether it be about myself, or how to act around others, I have learned a lot. Whether I complain about my melatonin deficiency which stops me from sleeping most nights, or my inability to eat food most days, my daily headaches and hatred for the world and all people in it, they have always been there to listen. But after listening to me complain day every day about the same things I kept getting the same questions. “Are you ok? Are you sure?” Always similar questions, always questioning my mental health and then me responding with a simple yes or head nod with my glare hardening in an obvious attempt to tell them to fuck off. And then with this question constantly recurring in my life I began thinking. Am I really ok? Then with my commonplace book at the end of the semester I decided to just write my feelings throughout my life and I began to realize that maybe the question, “are you ok” maybe wasn’t too far out of their lane to be asking. Let me give you a quick background about me and I think you’ll begin to realize as I did why this question wasn’t too bad to ask. I was born on a farm in a small town in Oregon called Boring. Yes I was born in Boring, Oregon. That always gets a good laugh out of people. I moved to Portland and lived there oh so happily for the remainder of elementary school. Then my parents told me that we were moving to California. First thing I do when I hear this is yell at them, and then get sent to my room for yelling at my parents. Well darn. Now I’m all sad in my room alone with my parents mad at me. And we are leaving in three months and leaving everything behind. And for me, that was a lot that I was leaving behind. I didn’t want to sacrifice evergreen trees for palm trees, my large two story dream house for a puny rental on main street in ventura. We visited Ventura earlier that year and I hated it. There was a beach and a few parks. And my room had a view of a cement wall with some vines on it. Doesn’t get better than that. But I bring up my view, because in Portland I had what I considered to be the best view in the world. And it meant a lot to me. As my house was perched atop a hill, I had a view of all of northeastern Portland and into Washington. I could see Mt. St. Helens one way, and if I looked the other way I could see the always snowy Mt. Hood. I could also thousands of evergreen trees, parks, the Columbia River and a heavenly suburban community whose motto is “Keep Portland Weird”. Man it was the life. I remember in these last few weeks my parents yelling at me 24/7 to pack up my things and then my dad’s classic phrase, “ Stop being such a bitch”. So I did my best to stop being a bitch and I packed my things going crazier and crazier each box I packed and got on with it. I still remember my last night in Portland, my room completely bare except my sleeping bag and pillow and it rained so hard that night. With nothing in my house, the sound of the rain was almost overbearing and I still think about it all the time. I woke up in the morning and I went up to my bedroom window that I mentioned with the view of heaven and being the bitch that my dad talked about I started crying. And then we went out to lunch and to an event I was participating in and we got in our uhaul and drove away. I realize that this short summary turned into something more but it’s my speech so I guess you’ll all just have deal with it. So we got to Ventura and spoiler alert. I hated it here. I went through the motions of middle school and developed this fun thing called social anxiety which still gets me today and stops me from doing many things. This developed into a bigger and bigger cloud over my head and I decided to ignore it for a while. Then I got to seventh grade. Spoiler alert this was the worst year of my life. At the beginning of the year, I made many poor decisions. First I cut my arms, on my upper arms because I knew that nobody would see it. I only did it on my left arm, as we had to change for PE in the locker rooms and I was able to hide it easier if it was only on one arm. But then it got too hard to hide it there so I cut my hips. I cried a lot in middle school, and it got pretty bad, and one day my dad heard me crying and he just yelled for a solid 10 minutes about how I’m a bitch and how I need to stop crying. So that day I cut my hip and I still have the scar. And I can also proudly say that I haven’t cried since that day. But this wasn’t the only form of self harm I undertook. I used to hit my head on things until I saw stars or got too dizzy to walk. I know looking back at it now that’s quite possibly the stupidest thing I could’ve done, but at that point in my life it was what I felt was necessary. The other form of self harm I underwent was nearly starving myself. I was an overweight elementary schooler, and I got to the point where I wouldn’t eat breakfast at home or lunch at school, and then I only ate select dinners at home if I liked it. I’d say I was probably anorexic at that point and this was obviously extremely emotionally draining to me and still effects me to this day. So this was probably the deepest I ever was in my pit of depression and despair and then I finally began meeting friends. At this time I met people such as Paul who was my best friend throughout middle school, and another friend who goes to Ventura High now. They both helped me so much not necessarily being there for me 24/7, but just giving me a reason to go to school and actually something to enjoy. Half way through 7th grade I also moved to a new house, a much better house in a much better location and that also helped. That old house just felt like the cloud that was over me and I decided to do my best to leave it behind in that house. I’ve never cut myself since then and I have for the most part completely left that memory behind which I am proud of. So with the move to the new house, I remained with my anorexic ways, but I also slowly lost the terrible habit of hitting my head on things. Eighth grade was just kinda there and I eventually met a man who would influence my life heavily up to this point, and it was Tanner. We figured out we were both going to Foothill and I remember he took my phone out of my backpack and put his number in, and when I looked at his name, it was Tanner Swagdaddy. That just began the legend of Tanner Nodolf for me. Now look at us. I get to point at him and say, “mono”, I get to throw Mr. Geibs exercise ball at him, and then in our free time we get to sing Sublime and Green Day annoying our friends. So high school came and I’ll get back to my point which is friends. I’m willing to bet everyone here knows who Branden is. He asks me pretty much everyday if I’m ok. And I choose to say yes and then go along with my day. And I assumed that he will just keep asking and I’ll just keep responding the same way. Then sophomore year came around and I met Alaina. Most of you know her as well I’m sure. She began asking the same questions and I answered in similar if not the same way. And I realized a pattern. The people that I’d consider myself close to all began asking the same questions. This summer I decided to try to loosen up and have more fun. And so I began hanging out with them more and then that led to me hanging out with my current girlfriend Nicole much more often and I could give a whole other speech on how she helped me. But with her I was able to relive my stress and have a way to forget about school and everything else and it couldn’t be better. And one night in a conversation with a person at the time I had never really talked to, I talked to Lily McCann and she asked me if i was ok and then sent me meme compilations to get me in a better mood. At that point I knew that there was something wrong and I decided to finally accept the facts. I had never accepted the fact that I was depressed because I knew that there was always someone who had it worse and so there was no reason to complain. I didn’t accept it because I always thought I would find a way out. I wouldn’t accept it because I didn’t want it to be true. But through the support of my friends I learned that it was ok to be honest and say what you need to say. In the America that I want to grow old in, I want everyone to have a group of friends like the one that I have, where you can be accepted and appreciated for what you can do, not what you don’t do and where you know that you have a whole group of people who will be there for you no matter what. And I hope the America of the future will be able to find these people without having to find them in the way that I did, and they will find them earlier.