My name is Jamie, I come from San Diego, California.

I guess I was thinking a lot about sort of lost years in L.A. I have a really fuzzy memory, I don’t remember a lot. And that had to do with a lot of me sort of being two people at once.

I think I remember the sort of secrecy of having to hide my attraction to guys. Growing up in a family of faith, it’s really difficult trying to own up to it. One side of me was always on the side that fared with my parents and my faith. And the other side was me trying to figure this other side out that was emerging and quickly coming to be.

I would drive up to L.A. at 18 or 19 and it was really foreign territory. It was only a couple hours away but it was such a new world. So here I am, trying to navigate by myself and getting into Hollywood, and trying to figure out what I was doing there, and being scared out of my mind. I would sit in my car and rationalize that, saying it’s okay, it’s normal, it’s gonna be fine, and the other side saying, you are doing something so evil and deceitful and nobody knows about this, and what if you get caught? So I’d sit there for 15 minutes and I’d just burst out of the car, stand in line, I’d have my head down at the ground not looking at anybody until I got inside.

I met this one guy from L.A., he and I just connected so well and easily. It was the first time I went up there, I was so excited. I got back home at 5 in the morning, snuck back into my parent’s house, and went to bed. My friends, thinking I was so inconsistent for not answering phone calls, asking me where I was, what was I doing. I’d have all these crazy thoughts in my head, driving up to L.A., meeting all these new people, seeing all these crazy visuals, all this new information I was taking in, and all I could say to them was, “Nothing, I just went home early and went to bed.” It was the worst of it, but it was also the best. It was so exciting and invigorating.

That kid and I, he would drive from L.A. and I’d drive from San Diego, and we’d meet in the middle and we’d spend a day every couple weeks at the beach over the summer and it was so…it felt so wrong and yet it was so wonderful. It was a first real connection, a first real love. It was one of those things where it was so hidden. And we actually got caught by my friends.

We were going to a concert, and admittingly, it was a Britney Spears concert, and I thought there was no way my friends will ever find out about this. I told them I was going to hang out with a friend and help him move in L.A. And so I drove down to L.A., but then we drove all the way to Vegas. And these friends, these frat boy friends, decided they were going to this concert in Vegas. And so we met in the hallway, you know, just out of total coincidence. And we were both shocked. And I disowned this friend that I had forged and I acted like we weren’t friends and it was very awkward and odd, and that was the last time we ever saw each other actually. That was the last time he realized that I just didn’t have it together enough and we’ve never talked since.