Spring 2010 Multi TRaC en route to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (The author, third from the right.) Photo by Instructor Eisa Davis.

I came into the Teen Reviewers and Critics program in March 2010 not really knowing what to expect.  I thought I was still going to feel like an outcast, even though I’m in my own society.  An art society.  I thought I was going to mess up my experience with my people, but it turns out my people welcomed me with open arms.

I no longer felt like an outcast because the people that surrounded me seemed to also be cast out.  Cast out of the world of science, and sports.  The world of simple talk and mediocre feelings.  We don’t list things or words to say.  We bring life to things that seem dull and meaningless to ordinary eye.  We write with meaning and view with honesty.  We welcome each other with open arms, we can express our deepest feelings of love, hate, war, and rage, and know our people will understand. I’ve never said “we” and felt so secure with it, not with family or with friends.  I’ve never said “we” and meant “we all” as in a whole.  “I am the ketchup stain on the white shirt of society,” I would always say, but now I know I am not the only ketchup stain.  We are expressive.  We are open minded.  We are one.  We stand together.  No longer outcasts of the “smart” arts, but members of the new generation of the arts as a whole.

I feel, that for the first time I, have found my place in society.  Amongst the loners and deep thinkers.  Amongst the artistically intellectual.  Amongst my normal.  I am now in the mind of art, and not the mind of judgment.  I am in a place where i can express myself with abstract language and have someone understand me.  A place where I can hear strange thoughts other than my own.  Or, what I should say is thoughts that make sense.

Not long ago my heart was broken by the loneliness of the world I live in.  And now I realize I can transfer my world into a new one.  One of understanding.  One of awkward moments that don’t matter.  One of freedom.

I no longer cry of a broken heart, but I cry that it is mended.  I no longer cry for the sadness, I cry for the appreciation of my new happiness.