đ Story Series: Michael's Journey to Understanding His Identity [Part 2 â Shadows Behind the Smile]
Hello, wonderful Steemians! đ
Howâs everyone doing today? I hope youâre having a warm and peaceful day wherever you are. Iâm thrilled to welcome you back to the second installment of Michael's Journey to Understanding His Identity.
This story, though fictional, mirrors the reality many children face in silence. As parents, caregivers, mentors, and compassionate human beings, itâs crucial we step into their shoesâeven if just for a momentâto understand the battles they donât always have the words to express.
So, grab a quiet moment, maybe a cup of tea or juice, and join me as we journey deeper into Michaelâs world⌠where silence speaks volumes.
Part 2 â Shadows Behind the Smile
At school, Michael had mastered the art of blending in.
He laughed at the right jokes, wore the latest football jerseys, and pretended to swoon over the same celebrities his friends liked. No one questioned his actânot even his teachers. To them, he was just another boy doing what boys do: roughhousing at break time, avoiding homework until the last minute, and fidgeting in class.
But beneath that surface, Michael lived in constant conflict.
One day, during literature class, the teacher asked everyone to write an essay titled âWho Am I?â.
The assignment was meant to be simple. Just a page or two describing your personality, hobbies, dreams, and maybe a bit about your background.
For most students, it was straightforward. But for Michael, that questionâWho am I?âstabbed deep.
He stared at his blank sheet of paper while the rest of the class scribbled away. The words wouldnât come. Not because he lacked thoughts, but because he had too many⌠and none of them felt safe to put down.
âIâm someone who smiles a lot,â he finally wrote.
âI like football, my mumâs cooking, and Saturday cartoons.â
That part was true. But it wasnât the full story.
What he didnât writeâthe part he erased and re-erasedâwas:
âIâm also scared⌠every day.
I feel things I canât explain, and I worry that if anyone found out, theyâd stop loving me.â
That day, he handed in a version of himself that the world expectedâa carefully edited story missing its most important chapter.
At home, things werenât easier. His father was a kind man but held strong opinions about what it meant to be a "real man." He often made casual comments that stuck to Michaelâs heart like tiny thorns.
âThat boy from down the road... Always acting funny. His parents need to fix him quick before he turns into something worse.â
Worse?
Was that what people thought someone like Michael would become?
He began to internalize the shame. Every innocent glance at a classmate, every moment he caught himself feeling different, felt like proof of something he needed to hide.
But hiding it didnât stop the emotions. If anything, it made them more intense.
He would lie awake some nights, curled under his blanket, listening to the muffled hum of the ceiling fan. His mind would spin with thoughts:
âWhy am I like this?
Maybe if I prayed harder, it would go away.
Maybe if I tried to like girls, I could âfixâ myself.â
So he did. He tried.
There was a girl in classâAmaraâkind, soft-spoken, and always lending her colored pens to anyone who asked. Michael forced himself to âlikeâ her. He even wrote her a note once, telling her she had nice handwriting. She smiled, thanked him, and blushed a little.
Everyone teased him about it for a week.
Michael smiled too. But inside, he felt like a fraud.
He wasnât being true to himselfâjust playing the part of someone he was supposed to be. Someone safe. Someone ânormal.â
The loneliness of pretending began to weigh him down.
At school, during lunch breaks, he sometimes isolated himselfâpretending he had a stomach ache or forgotten his lunch. He would sit behind the old mango tree near the sports field, tracing shapes in the sand with a stick.
One afternoon, while sitting there, he saw a senior student named Kelechi walk past with a group of friends. Kelechi had always struck Michael as differentâquiet, artistic, often alone, and always sketching something in his notebook.
Michael wondered if maybe⌠just maybe⌠Kelechi felt the same way he did.
But how do you ask someone a question youâre afraid to ask yourself?
âHey, do you ever feel like you donât fit in?â
âDo you ever pretend just so people wonât see the real you?â
He never asked. The fear was too strong.
So instead, he watched Kelechi disappear around the corner, carrying his secrets just like Michael carried his own.
Then came the night that changed everything.
Michaelâs mother had gone to a womenâs prayer meeting, and his father was dozing off in the living room. Michael sneaked into the study, opened the old family laptop, and typed into the search bar:
âWhy do I like boys and not girls?â
The results poured inâsome articles filled with condemnation, others filled with stories. Real stories. Stories of people who had felt like him, thought like him, and cried like him. Some were from other teens; others from adults who had once been teenagers just like him.
One story, in particular, made him pause.
It was from a 16-year-old boy who wrote:
âI used to think I was broken.
But the truth is, I was just hidden.â
Michael stared at that line for a long time.
Hidden. That word echoed in his mind like a song heâd always known but never sung out loud.
For the first time, he didnât feel completely alone.
That night, Michael didnât cry. He didnât pray for the feelings to go away.
Instead, he wrote in his journal:
âMaybe Iâm not a mistake.
Maybe Iâm just different.
And maybe one day, Iâll understand what that means⌠fully.â
đż Closing Regards:
Thank you, dear readers, for walking with Michael through another chapter of his emotional journey.
This part was especially difficult to writeânot just because of the pain Michael is feeling, but because it reflects a reality many young people silently live through every day. Silence can be heavy. But storytelling? Storytelling can lift the weight, even if just a little.
Letâs continue to create safe spaces, where children are allowed to feel, to question, and to beâwithout fear of rejection.
Doe I may be expecting to receive votes, but... Your comments, and thoughts are so appreciated.
Please feel free to share your reflections or similar experiences in the comments.
Part 3 is coming soonâand trust me, things are beginning to shift in Michaelâs world.
Until then⌠be kind, be gentle, and always listen with your heart. đ
With warm regards,
@steemkidss
@dannyben39 âď¸