When you first say your name I repeat it until it becomes memory, embarrassed when the next day I can no longer think of the letter it started with. We fumbled through conversation. Dance beside one another. Wait for a connection. It’s strange and it’s awkward and it’s where we all begin. At the start. With an introduction.

I’m not overfond of introductions. If you’ve met me, you’ll know my propensity toward energy and quick connection. We can speak for an hour on drug policy in America, I don’t need your name so long as we keep the momentum going forward. I’m sorry if I overwhelm you.

We are all doing our best to be fully ourselves, whatever that entails. Even so I find myself broken into facsimiles, pieces of a whole me which cannot be shared during icebreakers. I am yet to find a 60 second story of my life. I hope I never will.

Perhaps I’m overly eager to be where we are today. My heart races toward tomorrow, my mind eager absorbing every morsel of these first precious weeks, where everything is new and bright and beautiful. It’s a rare time, where every person you meet may be your new closest friend, and a time in which each identity you assume becomes your truth.

I don’t know your truth yet. In all likelihood, you don’t quite know it either. But I’m so incredibly excited to find out.