Matt Bernstein

I feel so unbelievably grateful to get to like be who I am every day.

I don't take it lightly at all.

I could like cry, which I don't do very much.

But like I think all the time about like the person that I was growing up and like so paranoid about.

people finding out, like, who I really was.

And I don't even just mean, like, gay in the homosexual sense.

I mean just, like, me.

Yes.

Like, I remember a core memory for me was, like, I don't know if you have this, but in elementary school, like, you would line up outside the school with your class, and then you would be let into the school, to your classroom.

And there was this girl named Ava who was so pretty.

And she it was like a cold day and she had these like white fluffy earmuffs.

And I remember telling her I was like, I wish I could have earmuffs.

And one of the parents heard me say that and told my mother, who then when I got home was like, I heard that you told Ava that you wanted earmuffs.

And like there was a whole conversation.

And, you know, God bless my mother.

Like she's come a really long way.

But like that really meant something.

And earmuffs.

And it instilled in me like there was I remember there was another time where it was like even before that in preschool, like, you know, we'd play house and there was this little like floral fabric, like Velcro skirt that sometimes I would put on.

And like I remember one of the parents saw me wearing that and like that was also a thing.