My favorite school assignment from kindergarten through college came in the fourth grade.

Mrs. Adams made her way down each aisle, placing a blank book on each student's desk. It was the definitive assignment for the year and ensured each of us would move on to the illustrious fifth grade. We were to take that which was most important to us and write it down. With illustrations.

We were to become authors of our very own novella, sharing with the world — or Mrs. Adams and class — that which would define the 10-year-olds we were to become. Some students wrote about their parents. Others, their siblings. Trips to the zoo or the first day of school — the possibilities were endless.

I didn't write about being gay. I didn't know it then,

This article appears in Apr 28 – May 4, 2010.