DNA

Here's a speech I wrote in March. I was in a public speaking class and the assignment was to write and present a commemorative speech with a manuscript. I first tried to write a commemorative speech on Jim Jones, which was impossible because he's a cult leader and murderer. Then I was going to write one about my grandmother who died of cancer, but there were a few other people in the class already writing about their grandmother. I even tried to write one about pajamas but to no avail.

My biggest problem was that I wanted my speech to matter to my classmates; teenagers who always had their noses in their phones and their mind on everything but school. I wanted them to listen and I wanted them to care about what I was saying.

So I thought about it for a while and came to this conclusion; what more would they all collectively care about besides themselves? So I wrote a commemorative speech about my classmates and the memories I shared with them. These were people I had spent at least the last four years of my life with, so I had countless memories of them that I wanted to remind them of.

By the end of the speech I had all eyes on me, and some were full of tears. you could've heard a pin drop. It was exactly what I had wanted - what I had said to these people mattered.

Here's my speech about my classmates

Disclaimer ----- most of these stories are stories that I was not involved in. I heard them from classmates throughout the years and put them in my speech as a way to connect and relate to my audience. So when you read about drinking and smoking and sex, that is obviously not my own experience.

DNA. Deoxyribonucleic Acid. This is the stuff that makes up an identity. This is what separates a sunflower from a horse; a cat from a dog; a cherry blossom tree from a frog; a worm from a leaf.

DNA. Deoxyribonucleic Acid. This is the stuff that makes your smile, your fingerprint, your toenails, your laugh different from anyone else’s. So here’s an ode, a commemoration, to your DNA, and to you.

Here’s to the way your eyes squint in the sun; to the way your lips disappear when you laugh; to the way you play with your hair when you’re nervous- or chew on it; to the way you bat your eyelashes when your crush notices you; how you grind your teeth when you sleep; how you wear your hat backwards, even when it’s sunny; how you refuse to admit you’re wrong even when you know you are; how you stomp your feet and slam the door when you’re mad.

Here’s to your guilty pleasures; here’s to eating pickles and peanut butter; here’s to eating macaroni the day after you start a diet; to singing to a song in the shower like you’re in a Miley Cyrus music video; to posing in the mirror like you’re on the cover of Vogue; to eating your brother’s chocolate birthday cake from a week ago for breakfast; to putting on makeup just because you want to, not because someone told you that you had to; to never brushing your hair.

Here’s to meeting that special person that you could lean on; to when you told them about the last one who violated you and broke you; to when you were relieved that they could still love you after all that you had lost, all that you didn’t have; to making promises that you never broke; to having a love that you are certain no one else would ever experience; to summer nights and cold winter mornings and french toast and fried chicken.

Here’s to that mean guy telling you were fat; to you believing him; to you skipping meals and pacing hallways; to hiding food in napkins; here’s to watching the scars you made, heal; to distracting yourself, then to getting better; to loving yourself whether your thighs touched or not.

Here’s to the time you had to give a speech in front of the class but you were nervous as hell because no one in the class has ever heard a word come out of your mouth; here’s to how you killed it and left everyone laughing; here’s to how you couldn’t stop shaking after.

Here’s to the time your life fell apart; to when you found out your grandma had cancer; to when you wouldn’t believe it; to the time where your brain accepted her death but your heart ignored it; to the months of denial until you realized she isn’t coming back; to the years of hiding your pain in fear of being seen as weak.

Here’s to new year's eve parties; to getting blackout drunk and a mile high; to staying sober and making fun of that one girl in the black skirt; to sneaking out of your house because your parents tried to make you come home too early; and here’s to them never finding out.

Here’s to finding something you love; to sitting down and picking up a guitar; to painting a bicycle; here’s to running a marathon; to beating a school record in hurdling even though the hurdles were taller than you.

Here’s to climbing water towers and walking through creeks. Here’s to playing pianos  worth more than your life; here’s to smoking cigarillos even though you swore you wouldn’t when you were a kid; here’s to watching family guy every night for 7 weeks in a row; to growing your hair out just because your parents tell you not to; to filling up piggy banks but not checking accounts.

Here’s to the thoughts that you think no one understands. Here’s to all of the times you’ve

cried because you thought no one could understand you, or would ever understand you; to all of the things you’re afraid to share with people- the scars, the memories, the nightmares, the hopes, the dreams; the pain that you hid behind a smile for so long.

Here’s to all of the chances you never took; to never giving that girl your number; for not taking the chance on the winning basket of the basketball game in 7th grade; to never cheating on that test when you knew you were going to fail; to never telling them you loved them before they decided not to love you; to all of the other things that might’ve made a difference.

But most of all, here’s to making it through; here’s to graduating; here’s to buying your first apartment and forgetting to pay the rent; here’s to finally getting that promotion; here’s to Christmas bonuses; to getting married to your high school sweetheart; to naming your firstborn son after your dad and your daughter after your great great great grandmother; and here’s to the legacy you left behind when you finally got the chance to leave the town that you were stuck in your entire life; and here’s to never turning back.

Here’s to doing life with me for the past several years; to making memories that you probably don’t remember but I do; to making an impact on me and my life; to growing up and moving on; and here’s to never forgetting you.

DNA. Deoxyribonucleic Acid. The stuff that makes you, you.