As a kid, growing up as a young male dancer, all I wanted in life was to be accepted by the other boys. Being put down for doing what I loved and delegitimized from expressing my masculinity, I was led to either rejecting the desired traits of others or rejecting myself. As I went through grade school I began to reject who I was, leading me to completely separate my in-school identity from who I was out of school. If someone asked, “Are you a dancer?” I would simply deny it. Putting in my best effort to act like someone I was not made me socially anxious around people I considered friends, which made it difficult for me to talk to them in a natural way. Therefore, I didn’t fit in. 

It wasn’t until the second semester of 10th grade that I decided to take pride in who I was. My first step to beginning my self-care journey was letting go of trying to please others. I began to listen to the music I liked listening to, wearing the clothes I liked wearing, and stopped filtering my personality to fit in. I distanced myself from the negative people that were around me. At first, this was very difficult for me because I had lost all of my friends at school, causing me to feel alone and very vulnerable. I was made fun of for embracing who I was, but instead of sheltering myself by catering to others, I continued to show pride in who I was. Another large step in my self-care journey was recognizing that it’s okay to not be okay. Once again this was difficult at first because I realized that I had been rejecting my emotions. This caused them to bottle up, resulting in me either taking those emotions out on others or having full breakdowns. 

Something that helped me release these emotions in a positive way was through art. I began using dancing and songwriting to express how I was feeling, which almost became a sort of therapy as I was trying to figure out who I was. This allowed my art to improve as I became healthier and grew into who I wanted to be. An experience that aided this journey was toward the end of my sophomore year when I got COVID-19. Now you may be thinking . . . “How would this support self-care?”. Although I was sick, I had a period of isolation during quarantine. All alone, I had a lot of time to think about who I was, and who I wanted to be. I focused on learning new things such as playing guitar and exploring new styles of dance where I could express myself. As I began treating myself better, I felt more comfortable in my own skin and began to be less anxious in social environments. Recognizing that no one is perfect allowed me to give myself the grace to make mistakes and roll with the punches.