One of the main focuses of my life has been making people smile and laugh. Trust me, sometimes, a lot of times, I have wished it wasn’t. I really have. For years, I hated being me. I hated that I would say quick witted things in front of people. Whether in work groups or class, it didn’t matter. Eventually, all eyes would find themselves on me. People would laugh; sometimes with me, sometimes at me. I didn’t care which. The best humor is self-deprecating humor, but I have always felt awkward with people, just the same.
They may not feel the awkwardness in my air like I do. That doesn’t matter to me, as I breathe the possible toxic air of all my secrets coming to the surface of our conversation. When the smiles and laughs leave, only an awkward, self-loathing Bardin-Man remained. This caused me as it would probably a lot of people to avoid others.
For a long time, I couldn’t trust others to love me. All types of love have a lot to do with trust. When we love someone, we trust them to have our best interest at heart. I always thought I loved others, but I didn’t. If I had, I would have trusted them to love me back. If they saw who I really was, then no way they could accept me. I didn’t love them or me, and there was no way they could love me. Much better to isolate, and dip and dodge interaction than for me to give them a chance to reject me. What if they see the real me, the me I can’t even love.
Sometimes, avoidance was impossible. When I would go to church, when I would go to school, when I would turn the corner and see an old friend with nowhere to go, but into a deep dive into all of the things, that have been going wrong in my life. This didn’t sound fun to me at all. I don’t wanna talk about that stuff. I use humor to avoid this at all cost. Hoping maybe no one else will see the darkness that stains my red heart black.
Don’t get me wrong, I love attention. So much so, that when I was in high school, I wanted all the attention. This was when I wanted people to know what was going on with me. This was when I was proud of my accomplishments. I’m not talking about just what people could see. I was proud of the person I was, holistically. I had nothing to fear when people started looking at the real me. Plus, anything they didn’t like, I probably didn’t like either. I had a joke for for things like that. This would soon change, but the jokes would remain. This fear of people seeing Bardin eventually began to look something a lot like social anxiety, but it can’t be. I don’t have any diagnosis’ like that.
10th grade was a great time for me. I was dating a popular girl. Fun was to be had every weekend or at every sporting event. I was really rising in the social ranks at Hillcrest. I have always loved competing. I love debating and negotiating situations. I decided towards the end of that year that I wanted to get into high school politics.
I looked at the ballot and saw my class’s valedictorian and salutatorian running against each other for 11th grade Vice President. My eyes stopped there. I felt like I could win the presidency race fairly easily, but I didn’t want that responsibility. That sounded like a lot of catering to the rising seniors for prom. I was not about that life at all. I was trying to lite prom up not plan it out. I also thought that these 2 smart women may give me a run for my money.
Everyone knew that they were both very smart. They are both specialist physicians now. They are both strong, intelligent women. They both made the two highest ACT scores in my class, but I wasn’t scared. Sure, I slept through class. I didn’t care about grades too much, as long as they were A’s. I had the 3rd highest ACT score in the class and was a 2 year starter on the Quiz bowl team; I was ready to come out swinging against my 2 brainiacs. Get it how you live nerds…
The day for speeches came, and I was ready. Well, not really. I had 2 notecards in my pocket that never saw the light of day. My two competitors were going before me. What can I say? I’m a gentleman, ladies first. I guess I will tell you about both of their speeches individually.
No I won’t. I don’t have to. They both said the exact same thing. They both said multiple times that the race was not a “popularity contest”. I was not a mean person. I didn’t make fun of people just to do it (sometimes people gave me HUGE reasons, though), but I knew my position with my peers was safe. Every time one of them would say something about it not being a popularity contest, I would whisper to my girlfriend and friends that it was, in fact, a popularity contest.
They then both went over a list of extracurricular activities, that they participated in. Several I had never heard of before. They both got roaring applauses for giving the exact same speech. For them to be the two smartest people in my class, I was bit concerned by the lack of creativity. I was wondering what it said about me. I didn’t even have the #4 or #5 GPA in my class. I was pretty sure, I was about to look like a fool. I had no real plan, but I had to get over this concern quickly. It was my time to shine.
I really wanted to show my classmates what I was about. It was time for me to combat these rumors of me not taking this seriously and hoping that I could coast on the popular vote. I was stepping up in leadership. I had big dreams that went much further than the office of the Vice President for the Junior Class at Hillcrest Christian School. I was taking baby steps to a larger audience. I’ll be the first to admit, that I didn’t have a 10 year pit stop of heroin addiction in my plan of taking over my world, but no one can see into the future. I do, however, believe that much good can come from looking into the past.
It felt really hot to me as I stood in front of my peers. I was following 2 very prepared students. I started off by thanking my competitors for running such a clean, tight race. I had to bite the bullet. Both of their speeches were 90% pointed at me. I was not expecting that at all in either of their speeches. I was certainly astonished when they both spent their whole speech making feel like a clown. I think they were pretty good friends with each other, and your boy had thrown a wrench into some co-Vice Presidency plan they had. They both had it out for me. What??? Time to take the gloves off.
This wasn’t the first time nor the last the someone thought they knew me but didn’t. It still happens daily for me. I can show people my heart through words. I can make people laugh and cry in a matter of a few paragraphs, but in the end, everyday, I am still me. I better get ok with that being enough. For so long, it wasn’t.
I continued with my speech. I wanted to be a man of the people. A man who cared for the least of us. I wanted to convey that to my constituents. I decided to tell them a story. Surprise, Surprise…
This story wasn’t planned nor was it true. I told my class that I had gone to Jamaica and was doing some humanitarian work while vacationing. I told of the poor in the villages and the decadence at the resort. I told of how appalled I was at this. I told of seeing a small child one day and being saddened by the state of affairs on the island. I was offended by the low chances this made-up child had at making it out of poverty. All while seeing tourists spend copious amounts of money at corporately owned resorts and driving criminality, by buying drugs from the Jamaicans, who are trying, by any means necessary, to escape the slums.
I told my friends and competitors, of how I took a sucker to the child and wiped his/her tears(Be cool it was 17 years ago, it may have been a boy or a girl). As I wrapped-up my story, my classmates heard of how I planned on spending the rest of my vacation away from the resort to really get the picture of the people. I wasn’t sure what I could do, but I wasn’t doing it, while staying in the best suite on the island. I was from America, and every young American boy knows, “3rd world problems call for 1st world solutions”.
Here I am Uncle Sam, send me!!
This story was coming directly out of my cranium, as I gave the first political “speech” of my life. I wasn’t really sure how to end it, so I decided to point my self-righteousness back at my voters and competitors. (No idea where I got this move from) My voice heightened, as I said, “…but y’all don’t care about stuff like that!”
They cared about what I could do for them. I knew what I could say. The old high school “ol reliable”. I promised to do what I could to make prom as fun as possible. I meant this with all my heart. I planned on getting DRUNK and dancing like a fool. I then told them that I would work with the administration to get better food and better drink for us in the cafeteria. Y’all have a cafeteria now, but I will give you a CAFE!!!!
I literally never brought this up to anyone in administration or anywhere else after this speech, Drink-Machina Non Grata. I’ve learned that broken promises don’t necessarily mean that you won’t get re-elected.
I sat down to a roaring applause. I was little nervous, as the election approached, but I was pretty sure that it was a popularity contest. Victory seemed at hand.
And y’all, it was!!!! I was the new Junior class Vice President. It was time to get to work.
The first weekend of HCS football back in the day was the Copiah Academy Fall Jamboree. I was a leader in my class, at a Christian school in Jackson, MS. This usually doesn’t fall to someone quite as hard partying, as I was. I thought about stopping but nah. My girlfriend was going out of town the weekend of the Jamboree. It was the 1st weekend of the new school year. I was about to get down with my friends and go watch my other friends play football. Did I mention my parents were out of town too?
I didn’t have to worry about the fake kiss on the cheek my mom gave me each night to try and smell alcohol on my breath. I didn’t have to quit early or find something to block the smell. I just had to make it home alive without running into cops. That had happened every night of my short life. I could handle that.
I was driving to Copiah with my friends Noel, Kobe, and Ai. Noel and Kobe were both in my grade and Ai was a year younger than me. I don’t think Ai had ever drank the way my friends and I did. I killed a whole 5th of Malibu Rum, in the 15 miles it took to travel down I-55 to Crystal Springs. I was lit and jamming to music. I didn’t realize Ai wasn’t gonna be able to handle his drink like my homies and I. I was handling it great. What? Dont believe me? I pulled into the school and ramped a culvert in my z-71. It wasn’t on purpose, but it was definitely pretty high profile.
My driving wasn’t great, but Ai couldn’t even lift his head. He was speaking in a dialect of maybe English, but it wasn’t a dialect I had ever heard. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. There was no way he could pull off being around anyone. We, 3 older guys, decided to let him sleep it off in my back-seat. We had people to see and things to do, at the field. I was feeling righteous; it was going to be a great night. That coconut rum had me thinking the world was my beach, and I was there to catch some rays.
I remember standing on the sidelines watching the cheerleaders as I heard over the intercom, “Will Bardin Boyd, Noel, and Kobe please check in with the sheriff’s deputies in the parking lot.”
Everyone looked directly at us 3. My heart immediately jumped to about 130 beats per second; I was on alert. I did not want to face the music. I was driving. Noel and I were both on student council. We were supposed to be doing things the right way, not the get a younger kid super slammed and leave him in the parking lot, while drinking and driving way.
I looked at my 3 friends and asked them what they wanted to do. Noel and I weren’t sure what to do. We were discussing it, when Kobe said, “We need to get into the woods.”
Noel and I just kind of looked at each other. My truck was up there. I couldn’t just leave it; I was going to need it to get to church on Sunday and school on Monday. My phone began to ring, as Kobe said again, “Lets just get into the woods and regroup.”
I looked at my phone, as everyone else looked at me. It was my girlfriend, Marissa. She was out of town with her family. News spreads fast in Mississippi, because she called me to tell me to get my act together about 1 minute after I got called out over the intercom. She was worried about all the wrong things reputation, image, what her parents would think?
I’m sure she made a great point, but to me, in that moment, I had bigger tacos to eat. I had a stadium full of people waiting on my friends and I to turn ourselves into the law. She wanted to know what my plan was. I explained that Kobe wanted to go hide out in the woods, and with my tongue in my cheek, said that we were kind of leaning that way. That was not the correct thing to say. Marissa’s voice went up a few octaves as she said, “No Bardin!!! I cannot date a fugitive. I am already going to have to explain to my parents why I am dating a drunk, skinny 11th grader who wears camouflage top hats! You get up there and fix this situation!”
After hearing her words, I knew exactly what I had to do, but I just wanted to make sure, so I whispered, “Marissa, I love you, but just to confirm, you are saying I should spend the night in the woods, living off the land?”
She hung up on me.
I looked at my buddies and said, “I handled her, but after further thought, I don’t think we should go into the woods.”
So, with all eyes on us, we began our long walk to justice.
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