It’s 11:30 a.m., in sunny California, and I’m standing in the doorway to my school cafeteria. It’s the year 1992, and I’m 14 years old. I breathe in slowly, letting the air fill my nostrils. I feel a sudden, hard bump on my back. It is the kid behind me in line, elbowing me, repeatedly. I snap out of my apparent reverie, and realize that I am blocking the exit doorway from the lunch line.

I step to the side, and my classmate jeers at me. I breathe in again, thinking to myself, “Do I really have to do this?” I am holding my cafeteria tray, filled with steaming food. The rectangular pepperoni pizza (special of the week), cut green beans and corn medley stare up at me, awaiting their future consumption.

I gaze out into the room, scanning for any semblance of a smile, a gaze met, a wave. None are given. I do another pan around the room, this time noting the tables’ categorization. “There’s the cool kids’ table,” I thought to myself, “That’s a definite no.” Next, “The athletes. Basketball, softball, even the golfers are sitting together.” It was game day, I noted. All the B-boys were wearing their blue and gold jerseys.

After I finished noting the different cliques’ location, my eyes fell upon the last table. The “nerd’s table.” I took another deep breath, and this time, let out a long sigh. I was confronted by the fact that if I were rejected from this table, it would have some meaning.

First, I would have been rejected by the very people that were barely clinging to the bottom rung on the adolescent ladder. Next, and this was the obvious one, I would have nowhere to sit and eat my lunch.

Shaking my head slowly, I reconnect with the reality in front of me. I am not, in fact, standing in the doorway of my childhood cafeteria. I am sitting on my bed, in sunny California once again. It’s 2020, and I’m in my forties. My laptop is open in front of me, and I am deciding to build my first website, Shark Harbor Sunset. I try to reject the teenaged flashbacks that are pressing up against the inside of my mind like frantic shoppers at Mervyn’s’ closed, sliding, glass doors in decades past screaming, “Open! Open! Open!”

But the doors never open again, for Mervyn’s is bankrupt. My resolve against my ever-growing angst and anxiety and nervous inner and outer chattering on and on and on is not as strong as Mervyn’s fortress walls. I hear that one voice inside my head begin her monologue, “What makes you think you’re so special?” the voice begins, “You should know your place by now. At the nerd table.” I call her Yvonne, for she reminds me of this one rich, pretty, popular girl at my school. She continues, “No one’s going to want to hear what you have to say. You’re ugly and poor and a mess.”

I sit with those feelings for awhile. Listening to Yvonne do her thing. I finally have had enough and I reach out to a supportive friend of mine, Lisa, for encouragement. She tells me that everyone has a story to tell, “Speak your truth, Jess. Does it really matter if anybody listens when you know you have a story to tell?” I argue with her a bit, but eventually accept that it is the telling of the story that is important. I thank her again for helping me out for the umpteenth time, and disconnect the call.

Have you ever heard the philosophical thought experiment, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it fall, does it make a sound?” Having spent a few years in college studying philosophy, I had heard this one and many similar versions of the concept proposed here. The imagery of the forest crept into my mind at this time, “Well, on the one hand, if there aren’t any ears around to pick up the sound waves from the tree falling, would it make a sound? On the other hand, the tree’s falling emits sound waves once it hits the ground, so yes, it makes a sound. Ugh. I’m so literal.”

Okay, Jess. Back on track. The point here is it shouldn’t matter if anyone is around for the tree’s falling to make a sound. Nor should it matter if anyone reads my story, hears my voice, or claps or cries or smiles in response to my art. It should matter that the tree falls. It should matter that I raise my voice and create something different in the world. Something uniquely my own. I jump back inside my own mind for a moment, “Yvonne, I appreciate that you’re trying to protect me from feeling rejected like I was as a kid. I’m not 14 anymore. This is a part of my life path, and I’m doing it. I love you for being a part of me.”

I take a deep breath in, slowly counting to five. Exhaling now, “1….2…..3…….4…..5…..”

I’m opening the laptop lid now. It’s clean, grey, shiny, and sleek. I’m maneuvering the mouse such that the cursor glides across the screen. Clicking on the browser icon. Then typing in the fateful words which will navigate me to my WordPress. It’s happening. I can’t believe I’m doing it. Click, click, click. Typedity-type-type-type. Upload, save. Drag and drop. Save.

Publish.