Our Stories
Eddie's Story
Eddie reflects on his senior year during the pandemic as a time of confusion and inner conflict, despite appearing to have a stable life on the surface. Through isolation and daily meditation, he realized his friendships and sense of identity were not as authentic as he believed, especially due to pressures around masculinity and ego. Ultimately, the experience became a period of deep self-reflection and personal growth that helped him better understand himself.
My story is from the pandemic, yep, a senior in high school. And we were basically on lockdown, as you know, everyone was on lockdown. And during this time, I was quite confused on where I was in my life. I mean, it seemed like everything was working out. I had friends, I had, I was about to graduate, come to UMass, you know, things were looking okay. Um, but there's a snagging sense deep inside me that just felt like something was off. Yeah.
And so I couldn't enjoy the activities I normally enjoyed, um, which include playing basketball, which, in, you know, just hanging out with friends. So, I began to just kind of question things and feel a sense of needing to retreat in my own layer. Um. And so I went inward, and I started to meditate quite frequently, nearly 30 minutes a day. And what I learned through this was a lot of patterns I had built up to convince myself, almost, I was happy because these were the aspects of life that I've worked so hard for my whole life. To be, uh, admitted to college, you know, to be, um, in a, in a, in a sustainable friend group. The problem was, though, I wasn't in college; I was still in high school. And I was not in a friend group that was truly sustainable, um, even though I was telling myself I was.
Um, and that was really hard for me to like swallow, um, because it was everything that I had built up in my mind to what was the perfect friend group, you know, it's just a group of, um, kind of guys and, admittedly, very just childish and unserious and foolish. And, um, that, that wasn't the bad part necessarily, but this sense of quote unquote, toxic masculinity, um, was definitely present in a way where I felt like I could not express my heart, felt like I could not express who I was cause I didn't know who I was because every moment was surrounded by this need to be, act strong or something or act like tough or act like I can't or I'm too good for, um, my expression of singing or, or, uh, any kind of dancing or, um, even just complimenting others or, um, feeling, like, pride is the only emotion I can show, which is really stupid. Um, but I'm a pretty prideful guy by nature, and just having that around me was, I guess, that's why I attracted.
So I was, I Learned a lot that it really wasn't as, um, important to me to impress others, to have this pride, to have this ego, to not challenge my friends, to not challenge, um, the status quo of being a man. Um, and, and, and just letting myself sit with that fact was very uncomfortable. Um, but I think the meditation was what really propelled me. And so this transformation, basically finding my inner truth, um, was doing this inner work during Covid. Um, and while COVID was genuinely, um, a terrible time for many, for me, it was a time of self-blossoming and growth, and I wouldn't be who I am.