I’m so sorry to hear this and I’m really sad to hear how your “role models” failed you like that. It sounds like your school said that your diploma was proof that you’re ready to succeed in the world while merely trusting standardized tests to determine how successful you’d be.

I hope you’ve since felt more proud in your daily life.

Please don’t blame this on public education, wholesale. I get that there are plenty of issues with public education, but there are teachers, departments, entire schools, and entire districts that put kids and their ability to realistically navigate the real world. I’ve worked with many teachers would would (and have) told politicians to fuck off than keep their teaching cert by abandoning their beliefs.

I’m proud to have worked for years in a school where teachers were comfortable telling students that American exceptionalism is a lie and that blindly believing anything different is a quick way to fall behind.

I put a sprayer coming off of one shower head and mounted it using one of those Ikea shower head holders. We both get our own shower head and, while the water pressure is not as wonderful as we’d like, we maintain enough hot water for a full shower and then some.

Now our friend and his boyfriend are questioning why they have to watch us argue in the shower.

Jeez, that’s a brave thing to openly admit right now. And I work in public education.