Bob's Story

Did you have any moments in high school that changed the way you saw yourself and or how others saw you? Yeah. I sure did. And, that's one of the reasons I feel like we, you know, we found a, you know, a beginning of a shared, you know, experience in our relationship. So, I'll do a little bit like what you did, a little history.

Yeah. So around 13, you know, so a little bit before high school, I always tell people the same image. I felt like a brown burlap sack was pulled over my head. You know? Like, the world became fuzzy, and there was a little bit of light, but it wasn't clear.

It was really hard and confusing for me, and my experience in high school is very similar. I saw myself as incredibly shy. I was very, very anxious. I didn't go through a period of not going to school because my parents would let me do that, period. I was getting up, and I was going to school, and that's all there was to it.

I I was very alone in school. I could probably pick out one or two names from my high school experience that were became friends, but I didn't have real friends. Then I didn't socialize. I didn't date. I didn't hang out with people.

I didn't go to parties at school. I also had an eating disorder at that time. So, you know, when I was, I couldn't even eat in front of other people. I'd go to the cafeteria because they need me. It wasn't till I think I think junior or senior year, they allowed us to stay in our class or our homeroom during lunch.

We didn't have to go. The way I saw myself is someone that was very anxious, very alone, really confused about that whole thing about the burlap bag. Just didn't I couldn't interreact react interact with people in a way that I would like to. I mean, I did some stuff. I was, you know, got on the high school newspaper, but that was very cerebral.

You know, if you've gotten to know me, I'm a people person, but I sure wasn't then. And then I was lucky enough. What happened to me, the experience that began to change that for me was in the first semester of my junior year. We were required in my high school to take public speaking. It was a required class.

The assignment was a humorous speech. I guess I saw myself in my head as funny. I don't know if I am funny, but and so I really dug. This project somehow spoke to me. I got up.

We were allowed to hold the material. It wasn't memorized. Somewhere early in the speech, I began to notice this amazing thing was happening was that people the the other kids in the audience, the other students were laughing like crazy. I mean, they were falling on the floor, and the teacher was laughing. And it gave me this incredible sense of power.

I'm really, I think that's the right word. This incredible sense that I had something in me that, I didn't really realize, that I could be really funny, that I could entertain other people, that this person that was super quiet and hiding in the corner all of the time and not even eating in front of other people could begin to change that. Right? And, it really did have this profound effect on me. This same teacher directed a a play the second semester called the Thurber Carnival, and it worked.

She said, why don't you come try out? You're really funny, and it would be great. So I came and I tried it out, and she cast me. And, so here I am up in front of an audience of, you know, 800 or a thousand people, all of a sudden, this super shy person. And all of a sudden, I had this whole experience around the arts, which actually became my passion late in life.

But what was important about it was it gave me the sense of myself in a different way. So, it was a beginning. It wasn't the end. Like you said, you had a long way to go Yeah. After that

And for me, I had a long way to go too. I was still super shocked. And I also I guess I discovered that being you know, you didn't touch on this as much, but on your family, but being away from my crazy family allowed me to really grow more. I came to UMass like you did. And when I came back for the first break at intersession, my parents didn't know who I was.

They said, what happened? I had grown into this other person. For me, the high school that that experience of that classroom began to change my whole life, my inner sense of who I was and what I was capable of.