College Essay

I was recently assigned the task of writing a college essay for my SAT Prep class. The topic I have to write about is a defining moment in my life. Instinctively, I am writing about my coming to the team. It has been particularly hard for me to write about in front of my entire class...but I don't care anymore. Here is my first, and unfinished, draft. Please check it out, critique it and leave a comment with your thoughts. Thank you!

Athletic, intelligent, respectful, responsible, confident; these are all adjectives that people have used to describe me; But the one that no one every states is “gay”. I am not particularly sure why people don’t, for it is a characteristic that makes me who I am. Although it is not the only, nor most predominant thing about me, it is a key feature of my person. I believe that this part of me makes me more unique then I already am. A major defining moment in my life was when I told my swim team my secret. The development and response to their reaction to this secret is what I consider to be the most significant moment in my life.

As a swimmer of only two years, I was rather comfortable with the majority of my teammates and I was comfortable with the fact that I was, indeed, homosexual. This comfort is what caused me to trust my teammates enough with this secret that I knew could hurt me, as well as help me. I thought I was prepared for all possible reactions, and that I was strong enough to handle said reaction… I was not. I was not at all ready for the response that came from my team. I wasn’t even close to being prepared.

During the six week period when all of this was occurring, grades slipped, I became completely disconnected, and I felt as though it was just my body going through its daily routine. I was no longer me. All of the things I had loved and longed-for, now meant nothing to me. The one thing that I loved and excelled at the most, history, now just became part of my day. Because of my strong love for history, it is no coincidence that the first person to realize how down I had gotten was my global history teacher. He would later become a friend, someone consistent in my life that was always there when things went southward. He was the one that helped me jump back into everything. He was quite possibly the most important person in my life during that phase.

Although the announcement did not go as planned, I was still convinced that everything would be okay. It wasn’t even close to being “okay” to me. I sincerely wish that I could say that I didn’t lose friends, I did. I also wish that I could say that my grades and overall attitude wasn’t affected, they were. The timing and method of the announcement was not well thought out. For, I wasn’t the one that announced it. One of the first people that I told took advantage of the fact that his friend and my friend were fighting with each other and therefore, saw it as a way to hurt me and my friend. It hurt me more than my friend. At that point, I had two weeks to attempt to get myself together and to go to our last banquet where I would face all of these people again. Some were friends, some not…Most of them, not my friends.

After being forced out of the closet to my team, I soon found out what it what it was like to be excluded, laughed at, and harassed. The feelings I acquired during this time were feelings that I hope no one ever has to feel: alienation, embarrassment, isolation, agony, frustration, dismay, helplessness, and just overall sadness.