Trying to find your place in school is like trying to find a black cat in the middle of the night. That’s how it was for me. Sophomore year of high school, I had just started to get a hold of high school and my grades, and I now wanted to join some extracurricular activities, like everyone else was. However, I had no coordination whatsoever, so sports were out, I wasn’t amazing at playing an instrument or singing, so honor bands and choirs were out. What was left were clubs in the performing arts, but my stage fright took those out. One day, my friend Ethan told me I should join the Speech Team. He said there were events I could do that did not involve a live performance; he also said it was Large Group season which meant I wouldn't be alone and by the end of it I would've had a really fun time. This sounded exactly like what I wanted; to be part of a group who supported one another. After a bit more convincing from Ethan, I signed up. While I joined Speech thinking it would make me part of a supportive community and give me somewhere that I could finally call "my place," it turned out to be a constant fight full of discouragement and exclusion from others.

Sweating from fear I leaned against the wall. I could hear the faint sounds of the group in the time slot before me slipping through the crack underneath the door. My heart started beating faster and harder. My vision of my teammates pacing back and forth in front of me blurred. I could hear Mr. Bolahan’s voice, low and steady trying to calm me down, but I couldn’t make out actual words. I suddenly heard clapping coming from the performance room, and my stomach dropped out of my body. This was it. It was my team’s turn to perform. The doors opened and a short, stout woman looked at me, “We’re ready when you are.” “Ready is a relative term,” I thought. I took one final breath, slow and deep. I looked at Mr. Bolahan for reassurance, and he nodded towards the door. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I walked in and set my computer and speakers up while the judge shuffled his papers and the audience got settled in. My fingers being numb from nerves made me fumble with the cords. My teammate, another Cassidy, took them from my hands and plugged them in. We took our final places as the short, stout woman introduced us, “This is school code 836 performing KNAP. Please remember to turn off all cellular devices and pagers and refrain from talking.” She turned to us and gestured towards the computer. I leaned over the keyboard and pushed play.

Afterwards my team and I waited in the school’s gym for our score to be posted. My nerves had calmed down by now. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a well-dressed lady walk up to the scoreboards. I followed her. I waved my teammates over as I passed through the crowd, they scurried over. We all wanted desperately to go onto the next round. I watched the woman tape up a piece of paper and walk away from the board. “Did we make it?” asked Cassidy. “I don’t know yet, I’m afraid to look” I replied. After a moment, I began to creep up to the board. I found my team’s name and followed the dotted line across the paper to our score and read it out loud, “One.” All at once I felt a wave of relief wash over me. I turned to my team and repeated our score louder, “One!” I began jumping up and down. My first competition and I had gotten the highest rating and was moving on to State. This was amazing! Nevertheless, I immediately began thinking of how to improve our Radio Broadcasting piece to make it good enough for State.

For the next week I worked non-stop on my Radio Broadcasting. I spent hours sitting in Mr. Bolahan’s office listening to it over and over again. I had to make sure everything was perfect. Every word had to be pronounced perfectly, every background noise had to be eliminated, every second had to be used, no dead air, every note of our theme song had to be heard, every voice, every breath, every sound, everything. It all had to be PERFECT. The judges would accept nothing less, Mr. Bolahan would accept nothing less, and I would accept nothing less. State was the next day, and I hopped with every fiber of my being that it was good enough. That I was good enough.

Sweating from adrenaline a panther crept along a wall of vines. She could hear the faint sounds of white tail deer munching on grass around the corner. Her heart started beating faster and harder. She began pacing back and forth. Her vision becoming sharper. Her growl started in low and steady. She was waiting for her perfect time to strike. All her senses mashed together making her completely aware of all her surroundings. She could smell the seaweed on the lake, and she could see the shadows of the white tail deer peaking underneath the vine wall; she could practically taste them already. She crouched low at the end of the wall and waited patiently. The faint chewing noise suddenly paused. This was her chance. It was now or never. She inhaled deep and pounced out from her hiding place.

I wish I was that panther.

Shaking from fear outside of my center I was a wreck. I was using all my strength not to sob. I had no idea where my team was, and Mr. Bolahan was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t focus on anything. Any and all noises faded together and took a backseat to the sound of my racing heart. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. My vision became tunneled. I could hear myself let out a soft, shaking breath. I could smell my own sweat. My mouth went dry. I leaned against the wall, slid down to the floor, and tried to contain my fear. There was no way I could do any of this alone.

“Cassidy! What are you doing? Get up!” said a voice to my left in a loud whisper. I snapped out of my state of self-pity and saw Mr. Bolahan striding towards me with Austin, one group member, following behind him. “I was waiting for you. What’s it look like?” I said trying to cover up my panic. I stood up and could finally catch my breath. My vision came back into focus, and I even broke a smile. The door to the center swung open and the previous group carted out. “Oh no, we’re next already. What do I do?” I asked looking between Mr. Bolahan and the door. He let out a chuckle, “You walk in and you push ‘play.’”

“We have a chance!” yelled Austin as we stepped onto the bus to go home from competition later that day. “What do you mean?” I asked. “We got 1’s from all three judges. Now just two of them have to nominate us, and we’ll go to All-State.” He answered with optimism. “Yeah, well just don’t get your hopes up,” I said. Of course, I wanted to go to All-State. Everyone did, yet at the same time I just wanted to sleep and be done with all of it. I then noticed that a group of kids in the back were arguing, not with each other but rather with some imaginary enemy.

“This is total crap!” “Yeah, this is so unfair!” “Keep your personal opinions out of it!” “You shouldn’t be a judge anyways if you can’t spot true talent.” “We were awesome, how can this be right?” “I am so pissed right now!” These were just a few things I heard that night. Apparently our Ensemble Acting group who had performed a summary of "The Scarlet Letter" had gotten a scoring of I, I, II. The judge's reasoning for the low score was the fact that they didn't find the material to be "appropriate." Was it an unfair score? Yes. Should it have been the only thing anyone remembers about that Speech season? No. Rather than being mature about their loss, for the rest of the night they complained about it and compared their act to everyone else's saying how theirs was so much better. However it didn't stop there.

Monday night there was a get-together in the Auditorium to watch for All-State postings online. I went home. I had had enough of petty people the weekend before. A few hours into my nap at home my phone started vibrating in my pocket. "Hello?" I answered not even paying attention to the caller ID. "Oh my god Cassidy! Did you see it? You made it… and in BOTH your events! Did you see it? Your Short Film got in as an honorable mention and Radio Broadcasting you're performing! You're performing! Did you see it? You have a chance to win the banner! Did you see it?" squealed two voices over the phone. "What? Who is this?" I asked, still not awake. "Jamey and Theo, get on the website right now! You have to see it! Oh and congratulations!" Click. I rolled over and woke up my computer. I logged onto the official Iowa Speech website and looked for my category. In the middle of all the names I found me, "KNAP: Performing." Wow. It was true. I was going to All-State. I was considered the best of the best. I should have been jumping for joy, calling everyone, posting to social media, at the least I should have been smiling. So why wasn't I?

Over the next week I got a whole wave of people coming up and voicing their opinions about me getting into All-State. One person said, "Underclassmen shouldn't even be allowed into All-State. It's not fair that us Juniors and Seniors got looked over." Another was, "Radio Broadcasting shouldn't be a Speech category because you don't actually preform. It's stupid, you push play, and there's no work involved." Someone else said, "The Scarlet Letter should have gotten into All-State instead of you." Yet another claimed, "All-State is rigged. It has to be. That's the only explanation as to why good people get left out and people who suck get in." Quite possibly my favorite insult of the week was one person who just flat out said, "I deserve to go, not you. I hate you." What ever happened to supporting one another? The very same people insulting me and tearing me down now had told me my first day of Speech that it was going to be great, and we were all one big "family." What a lie. No one supported me, no one came to watch my performances, no one said "Congrats" or "Good Job." They all just hated me and they all had their own particular reason as to why. It was devastating.

After listening to that for a full week, I didn’t want to go to All-State. I talked to Mr. Bolahan about it. "Do I have to go to All-State? Half my group can't make it, why do I have to?" I told him one night in his office. "Are you kidding? You have to go. You're the one who did the most, if not all, work on this. This is your first year in Speech, and you made to all the way to All-State. You've worked so hard. This is such an accomplishment, why would you not want to go?" he asked truly baffled. I just stared down at the floor, I couldn't make eye contact. I felt pure agony all over, for several reasons. One, I had let down Mr. Bolahan. He had worked just as hard as me to make this as good as it could possibly be and here I wanted to quit. Second, after hearing "you suck" so many times, I had started to believe it. What if it was a fluke? What if I went into All-State and the judge hated it. Also, I hated people hating me. One reason I joined Speech in the first place was because I wanted to be liked. I wanted friends, and instead what I got was even more exclusion.

I explained to him all the stuff I had put up with that past week, which didn't surprise him.  "Yeah, I've heard what they say. They're just jealous. It happens every year. Don't let them get to you," He paused. "On the other hand maybe you should quit. Maybe everyone else is right, you don't even perform."

"Are you serious?" I was outraged; here I was looking for a little of sympathy, and he tells me to quit! "No! Just because I don't do a live performance doesn't mean I don't work hard. I did all the work because no one else took this seriously. You know I'm going to do? I'm going to go to All-State, win that banner, and then come back and shove it down everyone's throats." I yelled. Mr. Bolahan stared at his computer screen, and I noticed he was trying not to smile. All of a sudden I had a realization. "I see what you did there," I said busting out a laugh. He had just gotten me to prove to myself that I did want to go and that I did believe in myself. As I walked out of his office, I was more ready than ever to go to a competition.

The drive to All-State was entertaining, the hotel was spectacular, and I was excited to watch other performances. During the opening ceremony was the point where my entire mindset changed.

As I sat in the auditorium and looked around the audience, I couldn't help but feel happy. Even if I didn't win the banner or anything, I was still sitting among the most talented people in the state. Everyone was smiling and looking around in awe. At points you would see someone fan themselves or hear a squeal. These acts all made me feel safe. These people weren't professionals. They weren't rubbing their success in my face. They had the same fear and anxiety I did. They all had the same goal I did. They were all captivated by the experience that they were a part of. They were all me. I bet their classmates had been jealous of them too. I bet they had stayed up late to work. I bet they had all thought about quitting at some point. Yet, they were here. And so was I. We were all the best in our categories, the best of our speech team's, the best of our counties, and the best of the state. Therefore, we weren't about to give up on our hopes and dreams just because of a few hard-ships. This was the group that I belonged in. The dreamers, the go-getters, the winners. While my speech season was full of challenges the end result was worth my frustration, and I did end up finally figuring out where "my place" is. My place is among the best.