The worst advice I've ever gotten

I know talking about this specific thing is a weird way to begin telling my story, but it's simply the easiest thing I could think to write about.

Some harder things to write about include:

-My experience as a first generation immigrant

-The gender and race inequalities in music and theatre

-Whatever tf is going on in the country rn???

But today I'm not here to talk about those things. Like a proper Capricorn, I don't open up to people easily. So we gon start slow, get to know each other a little better, then we can dive in.

Today I'm gonna talk about possibly the worst piece of advice I've ever received, how I tried it, and how destroying those beliefs led to some of the happiest moments of my life.

Let's go back to December of 2011 for a second... in Wisconsin. For those who don't know me, which is most of yall, I grew up in Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay, a tiny country South of Brazil. In August of 2011 I moved with my aunt and uncle to Texas, and then finally in December of that year I reunited with my parents and grandmother in Greendale, Wisconsin- a suburb nick-named by its locals as "the bubble".

Once we become more acquainted I'll tell yall about how bizarre the transition between those three places truly was, but for now let's focus on the story at hand:

So I'm there, in Wisconsin, cold as F**K because I was not equipped mentally, emotionally, or clothing-wise for the literal tundra, and about to start halfway through the school year on my sophomore year of high school... yikes. Before this point in my life, I had experienced friendship with the same group of people since like... birth? Nah, but at least 1st or 2nd grade of elementary school (and shout-out to them, we're still friends to this day and if any of my Uruguay friends are reading this, los amooooooo y extraño). So anyway, this was really the first time I had to actually make an effort to create a new community of friends: in a new country, in the tundra, and in a different language. Once again, yikes.

Another thing to point out at this stage of the story is that, no, I unfortunately do not have any siblings so I really just had to go through this virtually alone. But! Luckily I have a long lineage of nomads in my family who have generally speaking paved the way for me and helped me through the process as much as they could. I mean, how much can a person help another on the struggles they themselves are trying to overcome, right? So towards the beginning of my life in Greendale, as I was preparing to join the schoolforce (is that a thing) I received the worst piece of advice I've ever gotten", and it went something like this:

"Whenever you start school, find the most popular group of people and do exactly what they do. Join the clubs and activity groups they are a part of, partake in the same extra-curriculars, everything." Essentially, become them. I know a lot of you are probably like... that's stupid. And yes, it is and that's basically something that in hindsight, I recognize was potentially one the most harmful things you could tell an impressionable 15 year-old immigrant, but... in their defense, it had actually worked for them. Like, really, really worked. They joined sports, and had parties, and pretty much had the whole classic 2000's high-school "jock" experience. So yeah... even though it was stupid, I believed it. I mean, it just sounded so much easier than doing anything else. Like a follow-these-steps-to-success-and-happiness program. And...unfortunately... (sigh) I really tried to follow those steps. I'm rolling my eyes and shaking my head as I write this because wow, I wish I could've warned my past self about what happened next.

School in the United States is... different. I mean, never in my life did I think it would be so exactly like the movies. If I had to describe my Uruguay high-school experience, I wouldn't be able to determine whether I was a "popular kid" or a... whatever the opposite of "popular" is. I just kinda was. I don't know, I guess those two categories were never 100% mutually exclusive, and just the social rules were a bit different. I'm not saying that bullying and all the different social groups don't exist in Uruguay, but boy-oh-boy, is it extreme here. Just thinking back to how intimidating the hallways, lunches, and school events were for someone brand new to this country like myself gives me the heebie-jeebies. It was already equal parts scary and kinda confusing not being able to fully make-up sentences (it's still hard you guys) but trying to SoCiAliZe??? Impossible! I honestly think people assumed I was slow or dumb because, well... I was indeed slow to translate things in real time. The hilarious part was that I got put in ESL (English as a Second Language) for like a week before I requested a transfer to regular English to learn things like "door" and "window" (like, really... that was my first class) when in reality I was just tryna remember how this one Mean Girls quote went. (I gotta side note here, that Americans might be many things, but one thing they are not is bad memorizers. Like people here just remember quotes from like a million movies and other culture media and repeat them verbatim at any given point in time??? Am I supposed to be memorizing this shit too? I remember the gist of it, I liked the scene, I enjoyed the movie. Do I really gotta memorize the script? F**k, this is hard.)

So English is hard. But not that hard. Just harder than Spanish at that time. On top of the fact that I had been learning English from British people and now was in Wees-can-seen where the dialect is the exact opposite of what I had been learning in school, I also had to catch up with the high school lingo which very conveniently was omitted from any textbooks or intel available to me 3000 miles away. The f**king acronyms!!! Like LOL, BRB, FYI, TMI, DTF, STFU, ROFL, etc. Urban Dictionary was probably my best and only true friend during my first months in Greendale.

So here I was, in an All-American, pretty much all-white High School in Greendale "the bubble" Wisconsin, ready to INFILTRATE and BECOME it. According to the plan agreed upon me, myself, and I, and created by my popularity advisor, who shall still remain unnamed, all I had to do was copy what the popular kids were doing and then I'd be in! Great.

So I did it.

My first week in school I shadowed this one girl who you could say was a "popular" girl, and for what felt like a few months but in reality was probably a few weeks I sat with her and her friend group at lunch. I mean, I reaaally tried to catch up to them talking really fast in their Wisconsin accent, and I really reaaaally tried to come up with comments and jokes before the conversation shifted to a different topic but like... shit is hard man! You try doing that with a bunch of strangers who honestly you don't got much in common with. But I did try. I think they were just not very patient with me, and also didn't care to actually include me or get to know me. Or maybe they were just assholes. Lol, who knows? What I do know is that eventually I started becoming a little uncomfortable joining their table. I just felt this overwhelming feeling that this was not my place. Those were not my people. But where was I supposed to go? Like aforementioned, American school lunches are probably one of the scariest things of the teenage experience, and I really was not trying to sacrifice myself to the wolves. So instead, they did it for me. One day, as I was walking to the table with my little tray of food, the "lead" girl of the table looked at me and asked: "why are you sitting here?", as if I hadn't been sitting there every lunch since school began. I was confused, maybe I didn't understand the question. "What?" I responded, cheeks beginning to blush. "You can't sit here," she replied. "Why?" I asked...barely being able to calm down the thoughts in my brain. Eventually the thoughts took over. I tuned her and everything else out. I was embarrassed, and hurt, and confused. I think I spent the rest of the lunch cursing them out in my head lol. I had never been bullied before, but this felt like it. And it feels like ass. A flat ass. A bony, flat, dirty, smelly ass. I think they said that they were "just kidding," and I eventually sat down, but it was at that point that I decided I wasn't going to be sitting with that group anymore. I was truly on my own now.

So, my first attempt at infiltrating failed miserably. But I'm stubborn. So I tried again. This is probably the more laughable attempt, because if you know me you know that I am not athletic. Like, at all. But, I am very artistic. Years later I grew up to pursue a degree in Musical Theatre and I currently write music. So performing was something that definitely interested me in high school. Soooo... I decided to try out for POMS which is basically like dance team on STEROIDS. I'm talking cheerleading and gymnastics mixed in with dance. (And even though, thinking about it now, I can't picture any of those girls being able to out dance me at the club... nevermind, let me stick to this story.)

I really don't know what was funnier: the ideas and expectations going into this experience or the experience itself. But, I did it.

They had taught us some dance routine that we had to present, as well as our own dance moves, etc. I had about a week to prepare. I spent 80% of that time preparing my outfit and look, and 20% practicing the actual routine. I think that should've been enough of an indicator that this was not for me. What's comical about this is that I was trying to play dress up. I mean, that's really what that was. I had this idea of who I was supposed to be, what I was supposed to look like, talk like, act like, etc. and I was ready to give it a shot. I violated my cheeks with blush, wore the classic top-only wing liner + red lipstick combo, the whole thing. And when I got there, I realized no one looked like that. I mean, not really. I had put on a caricature of who I thought they were. And I had failed. Because it just wasn't me.

I won't put you through the torturous details of my performance. All you gotta know is that I totally bombed the tryouts (obvi) and once again, I was alone. With no tribe, no community, no friends.

Up to this point I had been pretty judgmental about folks, both "popular" and not. I judged "popular" kids positively, and kinda superficially. I assumed that just because they were popular they were "good" or "right" for me. That the "popular" label was enough for us to create a connection. That the "popular" label implied we had things in common. And I assumed the opposite of the non-"popular" kids, with an equal amount of superficiality. I judged people's outfits, I judged things that people said, I judged the music they appreciated, I judged everything.

And I was judging them completely by myself.

I wish I could say that these lessons came to me quickly, but they didn't. It was a really long winter. I got depressed, I felt so alone. I missed my life and friends from Uruguay. I felt so small and out of place in this huge country, and specifically in this suburb that seemed deserted most of the time. Like, "where are all the people???" Back in Montevideo, I fell asleep to the sound of car alarms going off, people in the streets, and public transportation. The bright city lights shining through the cracks of my window gave me a sense of security- I knew exactly what existed beyond it. Many nights I would sit by my window late at night and just people watch, listen-in on loud conversations, look at the dog at the neighboring building's terrace, check out all the clothes hanging from people's balconies. But in the suburbs, you can't really walk to a corner store. The closest bus was not close enough. And if you don't got a car, you can't really go anywhere but around the block. Especially in the middle of winter in Wisconsin. The brightest light in the entire block was the moon shining on the whitest snow. And there was some beauty in that. The air was purer, there was deer, and birds that weren't pigeons, and squirrels, and raccoons which I know people are super scared of here but since I was not socialized to have a pre-imposed negative bias against them I found and still find them incredibly adorable. And yeah, that was nice. But it wasn't home. And I was still lonely.

A few months passed, and winter began to slowly subside. I had been barely getting by at school. Had a few acquaintances but nothing like true friendships. Now I knew exactly why. After one of the hardest winters in my life, I had to literally stop what I was doing and have a real and honest conversation with myself. "Bitch, if you keep judging people you will die alone." And so I stopped. I decided that I was gonna do whatever made me happy. I was going to stop trying to be something I wasn't. No, I'm not gonna compliment you on your outfit because apparently that's something white girls do in hallways for no reason. No, I'm not gonna do things I don't enjoy, and I will not share meals with people who don't appreciate me. And I will not use people for personal gain simply based on my own superficial judgement of them; on the potential advancement I may be able to gain from being a part of something that is not for me and that, had the circumstances been more in my favor, would never be interesting to me.

So I woke up. Still a bit confused on why the brilliant advice had failed but still hopeful that my newfound epiphany would lead to a brighter future. And it did!!! Yay!!! The year ended, and that summer I went to this choir camp which is possibly the nerdiest thing ever but I had so much fun! I met great people and became friends with them for as long as camp friendships can last. And that was such a great experience, I wanted to try it out in school. So, junior year I auditioned for the school play, I signed up for theatre class, choir, and joined our version of the "glee" club (but way less cool... RIP Naya Rivera). As soon as I began doing what I loved, I made friends almost instantly- some of whom I still talk to today. I felt so silly about the way I had gone about my life the previous year. I felt so silly about listening to that advice and pursuing it. Not only was I in my element now, I was also good at it. I got some roles in the school plays, some solos in choir, participated in the talent shows, and it was so much fun. It truly paved the way for my career later on. Can you imagine what would have become of my life had I continued to pursue a life and relationship with the "popular" kids? Probably wouldn't be writing this today.

A few years ago I received the worst advice of my life. I tried it. I failed at it. I destroyed those beliefs, and finally I became more of myself. I learned to not judge a book by its cover. The pretty book the same as the ugly one. I learned that being my true self is the most attractive thing in the world. Because people don't want caricatures of others, they want authentic, unique human beings who bring their own identity to the table. Who can contribute an essential ingredient previously missing. I don't know who is reading this right now, but I hope it's someone who needs this, the same way I needed it back then. Hopefully you don't have to go through the painful and somewhat embarrassing experiences I went through. Hopefully you can skip to the part where you embrace who you are, even if you don't 100% know who that is. I hope that you explore your passions, the things that excite you and in the morning make you wanna get out of bed! I can guarantee you, if you're doing something that makes you happy, you will find at least one other person who would love to share that love and passion with you.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I hope everyone is ok and safe :)