On grief, belonging, and reclaiming the blue and gold.

Content note: mentions of school violence and grief.

When I say I’m a cougar, let’s be clear: I don’t mean the older-woman-chasing-younger-boys thing. Ewww. No. I mean Evergreen High School. Blue and gold. The place I’ve spent most of my life saying I hated. The place I blamed for my loneliness, my grief, my awkwardness, my brother’s absence. For decades, that was my script: Evergreen was the problem. Evergreen was the trap.

Then this week, Evergreen flashed across the news again—my school, my hallways—and something cracked open. The old story made room for another one. Love. Belonging. Pride I didn’t know I still had. Maybe I didn’t hate Evergreen. Maybe I hated how it felt to be me inside Evergreen.

I remember things now my old story never let me keep.

Like sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with my nerd friend, TI-85s glowing between us while we programmed tiny universes into those calculators. It felt like we were inventing secret doors—press GRAPH and a line appears from nothing. We were quiet and alive at the same time, which is my favorite way to be.

Or the day I broke my finger in physics class with Mr. Stock because I did the weights all wrong. (If you’re wondering whether humiliation travels faster than sound, the answer is yes.) Mr. Stock was kind. Pain and kindness braided together—lesson learned.

Or lunch in the teachers’ lounge with Cyphers. Not “Mr.,” just Cyphers, like we were in on something together. I can still smell the coffee and the whiteboard markers, the way the room held a hush even when people were laughing.

Or how often I hid in the library, pretending to study and actually practicing the art of being a person. Books were my camouflage and my lifeline. Tight chest, long exhale, stacks of spines like friends—somewhere safe to put my eyes when the room felt too loud.

If you’d asked me back then, I would’ve said I had no friends, that I didn’t belong. I would’ve pointed at the walls and said Evergreen is the problem. But the truth I can see now is softer and harder: I did belong, and I didn’t know how to let myself feel it. I had more friends than I could see through the fog of trying so hard to be “okay.” Honor Society cords I pretended not to care about. Softball my junior year (didn’t make the team senior year—another story I’m finally not ashamed to carry). The Gifted & Talented kids who were my people even when I thought I had no people.

In the early ’90s, most folks assumed I was gay. That wasn’t a compliment then. I absorbed that like secondhand smoke—always around me, hard to breathe. The last time I saw my brother was at my locker. I walked those hallways with grief as a second backpack. I used my best energy to perform okay-ness. If I could just be fine enough, shiny enough, maybe I wouldn’t feel so breakable.

What if I had used that same energy to say, “I’m not okay”? What if I’d let myself fall apart in the counselor’s office or the front seat of a friend’s car? What if I’d asked for a hand on my shoulder while the bell rang? Back then, reaching out felt like failure. Now I know it’s the bravest thing.

The colors tell a story, too. Blue and gold for Evergreen. I told myself I didn’t want them, didn’t own them, didn’t belong inside them. Later I became another kind of Cougar—Chatham University, purple and gray—and I felt so much pride. I thought, This is the Cougar I choose now. This is the one I celebrate. But maybe you don’t know what you’ve got until you fear it’s gone. Watching the news this week, the blue and gold rose up in me like a tide. Not nostalgia—recognition.

Here’s the kinder truth: I didn’t hate my high school. I hated the version of myself who didn’t know how to be held there. I blamed a building because I couldn’t bear how alone I felt inside my own skin. The walls were just walls. The cougar was just a mascot. I was the one holding my breath.

These days, I’m learning to exhale. I reached out to people from those hallways. I said their names. I asked, “How’s your heart?” I told the truth about old grief that still finds me by my locker. And like magic that isn’t magic at all, hands showed up—text bubbles lighting, memories trading places with each other until the warm ones stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the cold.

If you were in those halls with me—class of ’92 or ’25, teacher, parent, kid who just moved in last year—this is for you:

• You belong, even if your body forgets how to feel it.

• You don’t need to be a shinier version of yourself to be held.

• You are allowed to say, “I’m not okay today.”

• Reach out anyway. Especially then.

To the girl I was—awkward, aching, hilarious when I forgot to be scared—I’m sorry I told you we didn’t belong. We did. You did. You were an Evergreen Cougar the whole time.

I’m still a Cougar. Blue and gold. And I’m also purple and gray. I can hold both. The past that shaped me and the present I chose. The pain and the pride. The hallway where it hurt and the library where I learned to breathe.

Something about this week shook something loose and honest in me: That is my high school. Those are my people. The Cougars are hurting. Me too. I feel it too, Evergreen.

So here’s what I’m doing today, in case you need a script:

• I’m texting two friends from back then, even if we haven’t talked in years: “Hey. Thinking of you. How’s your heart?”

• I’m naming one teacher who made a difference and writing them a note, even if it never gets sent.

• I’m letting myself cry for the kid I was and the kids who are there now.

• I’m breathing—slow, in and out—until my shoulders drop and my jaw remembers it doesn’t have to stay clenched.

And if your grief feels heavy or scary, you are not alone. If you need support, you can call or text 988 (U.S.) to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If you’re in immediate danger, call 911. Getting help is Cougar-strong.

I’m a Cougar. Not that kind. The Evergreen kind. The kind who finally understands that belonging isn’t earned by being better—it’s practiced by being honest. Today, with love and sorrow braided together, I’m practicing.