Five years ago, I told myself I didn’t want to see people from high school. I wasn’t ready. It would have been our five-year reunion.

I told myself that I would wait until the 10-year. By then, I would certainly have a job that everyone would be envious of. I would be a doctor, a CEO, a scientist, an artist. I would have a husband and a life that made me too busy to care what they thought. I would be a completely different person from the girl who could barely make eye contact with people in the halls.

Well, five years have passed and I am just another cog in the corporate machine. I am a changed person, but not a different person.

I have grown up a lot. But I can still feel the roots of insecurity tug at my guts every time I consider going to the reunion. Roots that have taken a concrete hold in the soils of my psyche. Roots that were watered with name-calling, sunned by shame, and fertilized with all the bullshit of the bullies who made me afraid of my own sexuality.

Hey super freak!

I hope the laughs were worth it. You made me feel like dying. I dreaded coming to school because of you. I dreaded liking boys because of you. I hope that you will feel the same level of shame you inflicted on me.

I hope your dick gets caught in a wood chipper.

Now that I’ve said that, I want to talk to those who my heart has reached for the most. The girls and boys who are feeling ashamed for wanting to feel alive. For wanting to be touched. For wanting to be seen and loved. You do not need to feel guilty for letting your body take the reins, for once.

Your body. It is so incredible. It does everything it can to keep you alive. I cannot say the same for my brain, my thoughts, my feelings. But my body. It wants me here.

There is no greater feeling than letting go. There is no scarier feeling than letting go. The un-gravity is unnerving and the wind rushes past you in the wrong direction. To unsaddle the body from the brain and let it out into the world is reckless relief. And it’s okay.

To all my super freaks: I see you and I love you. I don’t blame you for wanting what you want. I don’t hate you because they hate you. I don’t judge you for being young and alive. I don’t argue with your reasoning.

I hope you know you are going to be fine. And there will be wood chippers waiting for all the people who try to make you feel otherwise.