Debating was a large part of my formative years, and throughout all
my teenage ones it really helped form me as who I am. Debating
showed me what it was like to be listened to, what it felt like
when people heard the ideas you wanted to share, and not just heard
but took them in and digested them and responded to them. It was in
my school's debating club where I found people who were like me
-- who wanted to win, and weren't embarrased about it; who took
criticism as advice or suggestions rather than bullets; who had a
thirst for knowledge obnoxious as dustiest part of a scholar
library; and who's jokes were just as crass and rude and
ill-informed and funny as mine. Debating was where I made a lot of
friends. It was where I became loud and clever and rude and I made
mistake after mistake and felt okay with that because it meant
growing and learning and striving for better. But I stopped. I did
it less and less, I pulled back, because when you start to lose
parts of yourself -- when they go to sleep for a bit -- you
don't want to taint the things you care about with that stain.
But friends stayed friends. And then at university after years of
pulling away and trying to turn my back, I returned to debating,
and made plans to see a friend there as well, a friend from another
university I went to high school with who was visiting mine. And I
was ready to go back to debating, I thought. But that friend killed
themselves the weekend before we were going to meet up. That friend
was a lot of what debating was to me. I didn't go in the end.
And for now, I'm not loud or clever or funny or crass or brave.
For now, I'm half. And that friend is six feet under, and
she's rotting in the ground, and I feel like my spirit to make
this world a better place is rotting with her.