Bracketed: A Story of High School Debate (Epilogue)

There’s a saying. Everyone knows it.

“Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way.”

There’s a reason pop songs are popular, and there’s a reason this has been whispered through generations and passed down like it’s sacred. It’s not some enigmatic quote from an obscure philosopher, but that’s why it holds power. 

I’ve been doing some soul-searching recently, and it deeply wounds me to say that my identity is inextricable from debate. Every opinion I hold, every line that slips past my lips, can be traced back to this damned activity. But there was a Sherry before she joined debate, someone unsullied—I know because I was her once upon a time. I wrote about her extensively. I am not just a debater: I am Chinese, I am queer, I am an immigrant; I am a poet, I am a memoirist, I am an author; I am a staunch believer in well-written characters; I am brainrotted as fuck from TikTok; I am in love with all kinds of music. There lies so much depth beneath this manufactured layer of competitiveness and pretentious intelligence, and I’m so excited to tap into it. To rest and strive for more in the same breath.

I’m not sure if anyone’s keeping up with these releases, but I apologize for this tardy, abrupt, hurried ending, and I apologize for taking down all my previous chapters in this series. I don’t want records of my writing in gossip and complaints, and I don’t want my debate career to be remembered as such. Every piece of artistic media should be produced with a purpose, and this story has become far less than that. There is so much more that remains unsaid, but for the important things to be overwhelmed by drama is an unworthy tradeoff.

As for my question from the last installment of this series: is it time to quit debate? I’m proud to say with a smile that the answer is no. No, it is not time to quit debate. It will never be time to quit debate because I’ve learned to ask for more. So I can enjoy debate as an intellectual sponge; I am no longer bound to it. I have bigger plans ahead, and I know my future accomplishments will dwarf any TOC bid. I’ll amaze my sixteen-year-old self who cried at every tournament.

But I’ll remember everything I learned in my time here, statistics about vaccine access and food insecurity, and I’ll keep the friends I love close. I know I won’t regret it, so I suppose I’ll name drop them here: Rina and Luke, my debate career is for you.

And to everyone else—“fuck the framing” listeners, every friend I’ve made and lost in this activity, every coach and judge and upperclassmen, every opponent, each reader of this story—thank you for molding me into a person I have such high hopes for, but I am made for so much more than you know.