The Side Effects of Endorphins

I sat in a speech class in high school that I thoroughly enjoyed. It had the perfect vibe for high school. The teacher was intelligent, surrounded by friends I enjoyed. I did not know if I was good at speaking in front of my peers. It was a good lesson to learn. I write that in retrospect as, I usually did not like these weekly tests of fortitude.

At my high school, the white kids did not mix well with the few people of color at our school. It is something I regret to this day. I cannot change the past and I can only reflect on it.

My friends in that class we were cliquish, in a nerdy, smart way. In general, though we were decent kids. There is a girl in our class that was such an outlier. She was the only person of color in this class, and we did our our best to befriend her. In retrospect,I wish we did it better. We had to give impromptu speeches, and I remember one of her speeches about getting in a knife fight. She cut off someone’s ear.

I wish I appreciated it for how raw and from the heart that speech was.

I still did not have a fully developed brain at the age of 16.

One of the last days of the term we had to give a speech about someone who was a hero of ours.

I do not even remember what my speech was about. I do not think I had any heroes back then.

But I remember Helen’s speech and what can happen when you get in front of a bunch of people, you are not comfortable with.

She started with a bunch of stutters and false starts, and she started into her speech.

Her speech started out with, one of my heroes in history is Adolf Hitler.

I wish I can go back in that class and sit there for a second and discuss that.

I do not think this incident was mentioned again.