Taylor Dahl

 "Tienes mi corazon. Eres mi obsesion." -Luis Fonsi

Taylor Dahl died when he was 14. We were in ninth grade lining up to leave class for the winter recess when I asked Taylor if he'd be doing anything over break. I suppose I was trying to make polite conversation because Taylor was like me, in many ways, average, a little chubby, short for his age, a good student but not a star student, just there trying to survive high school, and approachable enough to talk to, even though I wasn't wildly interested in doing so.

It was sort of like a bar scene or a get-together at a friend's house where you'd mingle with friends of your friends and make polite conversation to pass time. Taylor told me he was going to Colorado and I told him I was jealous. At that point, I hadn't ever left Maine yet, and while I didn't have the words for it, I felt trapped economically, and socially, so that part was true.

When I came back in January, a counselor came into our geometry class to address us. Taylor had contracted or been hit with something over the break, it might have been pneumonia, but he didn't make it. The counselor stayed in the room for a few minutes, a few students were crying, some looked into space. I felt bad but I didn't feel much and maybe that's why I felt bad. Taylor had a single mom and he was her only child.

It's been about 15 years. I don't remember the names of most of the people I went to high school with and, except for one, Miguel Dubon, I don't consider anyone a friend but Taylor Dahl's name, I remember.

Maybe that's how brains work or maybe I remember his name because he had a story, and it shouldn't have been that short. We're all the same in some senses, I was just like Taylor but because I made some mistakes, and was given some stepping stones, I'm able to be more ambitious and less invisible. Unlike Taylor, I was able to argue and lose a few best friends who served as place holders for the place and time being but did not grow in the same ways and did not transcend space and time in the same manner as me. Taylor might have grown up to a be a conservative, like some folks did or he might have grown up to have children by 17 like others.

All I know is that I'm at a crossroads that Taylor did not live to see. I'm looking into careers that make me happy and make me financially secure and independent. I'm constantly thinking about how my ideological differences with friends and loved-ones help me grow to be simultaneously more accepting, more mature, and more brazen with the lines I draw. I have always been an open book online, a clobber of mush and emotions and thoughts, but I've grown to be more vulnerable and honest about hard things in both my personal life and at work, and I keep around people who like my feelings and my heart and leave people who don't.

All of these things have been afforded with time and growth. The trajectory, while painlessly slow, and at times inadequate to the trajectory of others who I consider my contemporary colleagues, is upwards. And sometimes it's fast too. And sometimes it's unfair based on race and education and class. But sometimes I also get wildly lucky. Taylor might have gone to Colby, then Harvard, too, and I would've looked at him like "here is another white boy joining the white boys club at Harvard."

Time is wildly precious. For those who heed its lessons, it teaches you to be open and soft as you age. It did that for me. It's done that for my parents. Mistakes shape us.

I don't really do New Year's resolutions, it's never been my thing, but I do want to write more, even if it's scrambling, because A. No one else is writing my story B. Taylor deserved to have his story written and maybe most importantly C. everyone's story teaches you about you.

I want to write about the time I got rejected by a hairy red-head working at a non-profit org one summer in Maine, his name was Chris, and he was a bro and I am now out of his league. Or the time when I was pursued than rejected by a gym guy who had a thing for Asian women who are 5-6 years his senior. But those stories are silly and fresh, and though I think I might know the lesson from them, I probably don't yet.

--
What I tell my students and my loved ones is "if you think you're about to make a mistake, don't do it. Or DO do it and risk seeing what the outcome is, I won't stop you, but if it is a mistake, and you knew, don't apologize, don't apologize to appease, don't apologize because it's something to do. Live with the mistake, hold it, and grow from it within you. Don't place the onus of forgiveness on someone. They'll come to that when or if they ever get ready."

So I'm silly in that I'm thankful that I didn't make those mistakes with those boys or, more accurately, that the heavens didn't allow me to and I'm also thankful that my last words to Taylor were "I'm jealous" instead of "have fun. I'm happy for you" because, since I subconsciously wish I'd been kinder and more invested, those words remind me of my privilege.