The Hand I Was Dealt

by Alex Zhang

In the poker game of life, it feels like some are born with a handful of aces and a straight road to all the successes and achievements one could want. As for me, it feels like God gave me a couple of bad hands with no instructions while everyone else received the rules. 

The first hand dealt was my anxiety, a constant, overwhelming type that knots my stomach and clouds my thoughts. I don’t know why I was given this condition, and if I can even play this hand without losing. I convinced myself I was the problem. I was too broken, too complicated, too much. I’d lay in bed as my heartbeat hammered in my ears, thinking people secretly hated me; that I could not live up to everyone’s expectations, that my life was spiraling into something I couldn’t fix. I hid myself both physically and emotionally. 

In a classroom full of noise, I was quiet. In a world full of expectations, I shrank into somebody I thought others would find easier to love. But folding didn’t make my life easier; it only made me invisible. 

I was dealt a second hand—being queer. I wished that I could laugh and talk about crushes without a second thought, without being weighed down by the daily dread. I tried to join in, pretending that I understood or cared about the same people my friends did. Inside, though, I felt a surge of panic every time someone asked me who I had a crush on or who I might ask to dance. It was exhausting to fake being “normal,” but the thought of coming out felt like it would be more. Like it would confirm every fear I had about being judged, rejected, and shamed. At the time, I couldn’t accept the risk, but being queer is, and always will be, a part of me in the background, flickering like a candle that can’t be blown out. 

Over time, I realized that living with these secrets was a weight pulling me down, reminding me of everything I wasn’t saying out loud. I couldn’t continue carrying it, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise. The anxiety didn’t go away, but I began to understand that my fear wasn’t a reason to hide. 

I started to embrace my queer identity, turning small steps into bigger ones. I started testing the waters by coming out to a close friend and by expressing my internal struggles through my love of art. With each step, the imprisoning walls cracked just enough to let in small slivers of light.

Writing also became a way to vent my pent-up emotions. It started with a notebook, filled with thoughts too fragile to share. Some days, it was messy half-sentences, words scrawled on paper to release the pressure off my chest. Other days, I wrote stories of imaginary characters whose struggles mirrored my own—my anxiety, self-doubt, and queer identity. I wrote about anxiety in its puncturing details—the way it made my hands shake before raising them in class and how my mind often spiraled into an internal storm of worry. 

Slowly, the people around me who truly cared revealed themselves. There was a teacher who stayed after class to have small talk with me; there was my best friend who showed me unconditional love; there was my mom—who didn’t always get it—but tried in her own way to show me I was loved. She would knock softly on my door at night, lay next to me without saying anything, and we’d stare at the ceiling covered in glow-in-the-dark stars. These small gestures alone didn’t solve my struggles, but they reminded me I wasn’t alone in taking them on. 

My weaknesses have become sources of my greatest strength. My anxiety, with all its torment, made me more attuned to emotions—both mine and those of others. My queer identity taught me how to love unconditionally and to be a source of connection to people I wouldn’t have known otherwise. 

What I used to view as flaws became tools for growth. None of it was easy, and there are still days when I wish I had the ability to trade my cards for aces, but I’m not defined by my anxiety, nor am I limited by being queer. These two parts of me have shaped who I am—someone who cares and feels deeply. 

Maybe I wasn’t dealt aces, but when I look at my hands now, I don’t see burdens anymore. I don’t have a handful of aces, but I’m still here in the poker game of my life, and I am not folding. 

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Alex Zhang is a high school student from Toronto, Canada. He plays for a local volleyball club and leads Letters of Solace, a nonprofit organization dedicated to mental health advocacy in China. Inspired by writers like Ocean Vuong, Alex values honesty and raw authenticity in his work. He hopes to use writing as a mirror to life—allowing readers to see themselves reflected in its truths.