I remember walking back home with my brother following just behind me, I had several bruises along my chest and arms from getting in a fight with a local bully. I was mad, internally screaming obscenities at my tormentor the whole walk there. As we were nearing the train tracks dividing town, my best friend Ty came lumbering over towards us; he ran over, a crooked smile and familiar scar speeding our way. After he reached us I gave him a firm hug, he was one of the only kids in our town with Indigenous blood besides us and it showed. We walked back and started talking along the way about what happened in class earlier and why I got dragged out. I told him why I got in a fight and how the bully had been talking about my family being dirty Natives. It was easy to talk to him about because he knew that I was not happy with my heritage at the time and that the subject easily provoked me, he also knew that I was very defensive about my family. 

We passed the petro, snagging popsicles and heading back out on the rest of the walk home. After dropping my brother off at home me and Ty went back to his house to play some playstation but I could not get the day’s events out of my mind. This particular incident just left a sour taste in my mouth that no amount of sugar was going to fix, I turned to my friend; I looked him over and then again at my surroundings and took in something that I never had before, despite all my own issues my friend had it even worse than myself. We were both bullied and harassed for blood that we had no choice in pumping through our hearts. We were both poor and disenfranchised with where we lived; what divided us and what I had never seen before was that where I had a choice in the matter he had none. I had skin that could hide my heritage in any place that nobody knew me but my friend was a prisoner no matter where he called home. While I could hide behind an ivory wall to protect me from the worst of things, Ty had his identity plastered all over his face as clear as day. I could pretend or deny and there would be no way to dispute it but Ty could never be seen as anything other than what he was. 

Then it was my turn to ask Ty a question: how do you do it I asked. At first he was confused thinking I had meant a trick in the game but I told him what it was that I really meant. Looking into his eyes it was like looking into a partial reflection on water, he was both there and not there at the same time, an image poised to fade apart at any moment; but, just as quickly, the life returned with his normal crooked smile and he said something that stood with me. “I cannot choose who my blood parents are no more than I can choose who my foster parents are. I realized that stuff doesn’t matter and that I will do what makes me happy not what makes someone else happy. Why would I run around so somebody else can stay in place.” He turned back to the game and I followed suit but my heart was not in it.

I came to the realization that despite my own issues there was somebody right beside me who had even more than I did. While I had always known that we were both Indigenous I had never stopped to wonder how my appearance had been buffering the storm for me. I may get catcalled and bullied for a part of my history that I cannot change but I was not met with immediate discrimination just for looking Native. Despite spending days and weeks together I had never thought about the differences we had only the similarities that brought us together. I always grouped us together as cut from the same cloth but in many ways we were just as different as we were alike. The friend that I thought of as a brother, who I had always thought of as a twin to my own chaotic life suddenly seemed so different and strange yet nothing had changed at all.