When I was 16...
When I was 16 the world was a different place. The internet was just starting to reach households and not a lot of people were plugging in yet. Those of us who did had to deal with a really loud, really slow dial-up connection that would tie up your one phone line in the house. Caller-ID had just come around so it was no longer fun to prank call your friends...or that cute boy you had a crush on. Cell phones only existed on tv...the closest people came to a cell phone was a giant car phone that had a separate antenna that you had to attach to the outside of your car to get reception. I'll never forget that first time I called my friend ON THE WAY to her house. "No, I'm on my way...no I'm not leaving, I already left...I'm in the car!"
Boy bands were beginning to sweep the pop music scene and I was eating them up. The teenage blonde bombshells were out just so that we had something else to feel inadequate about. All they sang about was falling in and out of love. I naively thought I knew all about what it was they were belting out the high notes to. Alanis was also out screaming about how she had gotten fucked over. In fact I can remember holing myself up in my room singing at the top of my lungs over whatever crush-that-didn't-work-out that I had at the moment.
Even though I was at the most beautiful I would ever be...I hated myself and I never thought boys would ever like me. I was convinced that they were only interested in my much skinnier friends. The damned thing about it was that I never gave them a chance to like me because I was just so bitter about not being a size 6 that I don't think I was ever friendly to any guys I liked. I just assumed they only liked super skinny girls who's thighs didn't touch so I treated them all like they were pieces of shallow shit. Little did I know...or feel...I was definitely a normal size back then. I look at the pictures and I just weep for my teenage lonely self.
It's terrible because I've since talked to some of those guys I went to high school with, that I had crushes on, and they always say "I thought you hated me!" I wish I would have revealed a few of those crushes when I was 16 instead of hopped up on vodka in a hometown bar years later when it's too late because they're married to someone who wasn't a bitch. Who knows how differently my life would have turned out if I had had a little self-esteem. It was just easier back then to cut myself down first before anyone else said anything.
Some of the reason I hated myself is that I was bullied in middle school. Some of it was because of a few choice words some really really dumb guys said to me. I remember one guy was dating a (rather skinny) friend of mine. We had spent the afternoon together waiting for her to get done with what she was doing and he confessed that he wished my friend had my brain. As in...I want her body but your mind because I don't like your body. Another guy my freshman year, in the middle of my Animal Tech class with Mr. Churney, said that it wasn't his fault that I was fat. A guy I thought I was friends with. And there's no way I was fat when I was 15. I just had a normal woman's body. I wasn't a walking pre-pubescent stick like my classmates...who are mostly "normal-sized" now I might add.
But this blog isn't about my terrible body image. I could talk about that for days. It's about how different things were when I was 16. Once I graduated high school and left this town...I left my insecurities behind because boys started to like me. All I wanted to do was leave the small-minded guys behind; and just the thought that I had, was enough to give me the confidence I needed. It's confidence that guys are attracted to...not just skinny. When you're confident, you are beautiful.
But when I was 16 I was also excited about the rest of my life. The possibilities seemed endless. I was going to continue to get good grades. I was going to graduate school and I was going to leave the small-minded town behind. Going to college was my ticket out of here to the good life. HA! Just thinking about how excited I was to leave back then... I thought my "real" life would start as soon as I turned 18 was able to leave for good. I wanted to leave all the labeled people, the jocks, the preps, the stoners, the nerds...in my past. I was done with people being popular for being rich and people being hated for being different.
And here I am, 14 years later...back again. It's surreal to be back here in my hometown...living in my parent's house no less. Sometimes I take the family dog for walks around town...I plug in my 90's station and take off for a couple miles of uninterrupted walks down memory lane. And sometimes I'll hear a song, and I'll be in a familiar part of town, and I'm 16 again. For just a moment my life is simple again. My best friends and I drive around with our favorite songs blaring out the windows while we sing along. Our biggest worry is who's going to the football game, who we are taking to the next dance, or some big test that is basically the text book regurgitated in a multiple choice format that only counts for 10% of your final grade because you'll have ten more chances to get it right.
For three and a half minutes I look good in a cheerleading uniform...I have the best hair ever...I'm on the high honor roll...my voice resonates in to high notes easily...my favorite sport is soccer...I have a crush on no less than 5 guys...and my best friends are forever. I was never worried about anything that actually counts, even though it counted for so much back then. I had my youth, my health, and a future with so many possibilities! It's amazing how much one song can do for you...the memories it can bring back. Even though so much has changed in the world since those songs were played on the radio...those songs are frozen in time. Every time I hear them they sound exactly the same as they did when I was 16. I can't say that about much else...
A lot of people hated their teenage years. They wouldn't go back to high school for a million dollars. Well I probably shouldn't say that in this economy...but you get the point. It's not really high school that I reminisce about...I mean, I had a great time in high school...but it's just the feeling of being young and having the world open to you. The biggest thing I battled with in high school was my self-confidence...but so did everyone else so it was an even playing field that you could easily fake if needed. I had enough friends and acquaintances that I never really felt like I missed out on anything.
Most of my friends back then were more experienced in life than I was. I was a pretty "good girl" for the most part. I was a very naive girl as well. My friends weren't even delinquents...they just did things like smoke cigarettes and have sex. Sex was just not in my repertoire when I was that age. It wasn't even an option. From the day I learned what can happen when you have sex...namely, pregnancy and std's...I was bound and determined to wait until I was married. As I watched my friends lose their virginity to their boyfriends...I realized maybe marriage was a little ridiculous to wait for...but I really wanted it to be someone I loved.
Love may or may not have been why they decided to have sex...but it was going to be for me. I heard stories of girls sleeping with guys who never talked to them again...or who ignored them in the hallways...or who just had really horrible first times existing of dirty couches in dark basements with bad movies playing in the background. I didn't want that to be me. If I was going to give up all the shit you give up when you pop the cherry I was going to make sure it counted. I couldn't even imagine getting naked with a guy who would never talk to me again. Jesus Christ no way. My poor ego was fragile enough...but if I was going to give him the most intimate part of me I was not going to then be tossed aside like trash.
I'd have to say that's the one thing I wish I would have been a little more lenient on. Of all the things I did in high school...or, didn't do...that's one that I probably could have just gone ahead and bent the rules on a little bit. I don't regret my "first time" by any means. I was madly in love for two years before I got to finally hand in my V-card and it meant the world to me...but hindsight is 20/20. I wish I had some sweet teenage boy from high school I could friend on Facebook and always remember fondly--and maybe even have some harmful flirtatious "remember when" exchanges if we ran in to each other again. Instead it was my ex-boyfriend who now hates my guts and is completely cut out of my life. That part I'd like a do-over in.
But 16 was just a different time for me. It's crazy to think that it was almost half a lifetime ago...but not so crazy at the same time if you add up all the stuff that I've learned and things that have changed since then. I feel like I'm still close enough to 16 to really vividly remember what it was like to be that age. I know that my years are fading faster than I ever thought they would. I feel like I blinked and now I'm 30. Well...I'm not 30 yet...but in a little over a month I will be. That's most likely why I keep having these flashbacks lately of when I was younger.
It's like I've reached that age in my life when I want to look back and make sure I've accomplished what it was I wanted to accomplish. I almost feel like I've skipped to Erikson's last stage of life--Integrity vs Despair--and I am now looking back to see if it was all worth it. I'm not accepting death at such a young age by any means...but it sort of feels like my life is over. I feel like I missed the boat to middle adult-hood while I watch all my classmates get married and have children. It's like I'm standing on the shoreline of 20-something and am just going to tread water until I see the shoreline of "late adulthood to death."
Granted, I've always been a little over-dramatic...but it's really hard to not want to go back to a simpler time when I was at the same stage of life as everyone else. I don't think I have one 30 year old female friend who is single. I have some single friends...but they are all younger than me. If I do have friends who are about my age, and are single, it's because they have some fabulous career that keeps their life fulfilled. At this point in my life...I don't even have employment. Silly me for thinking that my 15 years of work experience and bachelor's degree was going to get me a job in my hometown...
When I think back to being 16 I can forget that I'm almost 30, single, unemployed, and living in my parent's basement. I became everything I worked so hard not to become. I was going to go to college and I was going to start my life! I was going to meet a fabulous man and start a fabulous career and then have a fabulous family. I was "going to..." I was going to, I was going to... Not that I can't still have all that. It's not like I'm dead. People start lives and families later in life these days...it's not unheard of. It just seems like such a far-fetched dream right now. When I was 16...it was so close I could smell it!
I know I need to stop living in my past...but my past was just seems like such a better place to be. There's a quote that says "The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was and the present worse than it is." It's true...I just wish I could convince my heart of this. My brain knows it. My brains knows I'm being irrational and just suffering from an I'm-turning-30-life-crisis...but my brain rarely wins those fights.
These walks down memory lane are borderline dangerous. Instead of fantasizing about how happy I used to be...I need to be focusing on my future. My future is the only thing I can change at this point. It's too late to go back and remember what it's like to not have to be an adult yet. It's too late...I'm a full-fledged adult. I couldn't imagine 29 or 30 when I was 16...and when I did, I imagined something so much different than this. I'm glad we have cable internet. I like cell-phones...I just wish people still spent time talking to each other face to face and less time talking to each other online.
People who knew me when I was 16, don't know me now. Unless we stayed friends and stayed in touch...I'm a completely different person. The world has changed so much...and I definitely followed suit. I'm sure some people have added me on Facebook with one particular memory of me and then they read all the bullshit I say and the pictures and videos I post and realize they don't even really know me. I've had lots of people add me and then delete me again. I've even had family add me and then delete me. I can't help it that I didn't stay that sweet 16 year old they thought they knew. Life is tough and I had to get tough right along with it.
My blogs are the real me though. When I write it's as close to getting to know me as anyone on the outside ever could. My Facebook is just an outlet for me to post crude pictures and make random thought statements. I don't take in to account that some people had one idea of me and then I ruin it by making anti-religious statements or declaring my support for gay rights. I swear and I'm rude. I have a low tolerance for bull-shit and judgmental assholes. I think little of men because they've constantly disappointed me. I know you can't lump all men in to one category...but it's just easier that way. I don't have a career that I love. I haven't met the man of my dreams. So I bitch. A lot. And then I bitch some more. And I try to do it with humor so people will stop fucking deleting me...but I can't please everyone.
Right now I'm only worried about pleasing myself I guess...and if mama ain't happy...well...mama ain't happy and she's going to bitch about it. It makes for good blogging. Or so I think.
I suppose at this point in the night really need to hit the hay. It sucks when I get a bug up my ass at midnight to type up a blog and it takes me an hour and a half...but such is life. And since I don't have a job to go to tomorrow...guess I get to sleep in. I'll probably dream about being 16 again anyway...
Boy bands were beginning to sweep the pop music scene and I was eating them up. The teenage blonde bombshells were out just so that we had something else to feel inadequate about. All they sang about was falling in and out of love. I naively thought I knew all about what it was they were belting out the high notes to. Alanis was also out screaming about how she had gotten fucked over. In fact I can remember holing myself up in my room singing at the top of my lungs over whatever crush-that-didn't-work-out that I had at the moment.
Even though I was at the most beautiful I would ever be...I hated myself and I never thought boys would ever like me. I was convinced that they were only interested in my much skinnier friends. The damned thing about it was that I never gave them a chance to like me because I was just so bitter about not being a size 6 that I don't think I was ever friendly to any guys I liked. I just assumed they only liked super skinny girls who's thighs didn't touch so I treated them all like they were pieces of shallow shit. Little did I know...or feel...I was definitely a normal size back then. I look at the pictures and I just weep for my teenage lonely self.
It's terrible because I've since talked to some of those guys I went to high school with, that I had crushes on, and they always say "I thought you hated me!" I wish I would have revealed a few of those crushes when I was 16 instead of hopped up on vodka in a hometown bar years later when it's too late because they're married to someone who wasn't a bitch. Who knows how differently my life would have turned out if I had had a little self-esteem. It was just easier back then to cut myself down first before anyone else said anything.
Some of the reason I hated myself is that I was bullied in middle school. Some of it was because of a few choice words some really really dumb guys said to me. I remember one guy was dating a (rather skinny) friend of mine. We had spent the afternoon together waiting for her to get done with what she was doing and he confessed that he wished my friend had my brain. As in...I want her body but your mind because I don't like your body. Another guy my freshman year, in the middle of my Animal Tech class with Mr. Churney, said that it wasn't his fault that I was fat. A guy I thought I was friends with. And there's no way I was fat when I was 15. I just had a normal woman's body. I wasn't a walking pre-pubescent stick like my classmates...who are mostly "normal-sized" now I might add.
But this blog isn't about my terrible body image. I could talk about that for days. It's about how different things were when I was 16. Once I graduated high school and left this town...I left my insecurities behind because boys started to like me. All I wanted to do was leave the small-minded guys behind; and just the thought that I had, was enough to give me the confidence I needed. It's confidence that guys are attracted to...not just skinny. When you're confident, you are beautiful.
But when I was 16 I was also excited about the rest of my life. The possibilities seemed endless. I was going to continue to get good grades. I was going to graduate school and I was going to leave the small-minded town behind. Going to college was my ticket out of here to the good life. HA! Just thinking about how excited I was to leave back then... I thought my "real" life would start as soon as I turned 18 was able to leave for good. I wanted to leave all the labeled people, the jocks, the preps, the stoners, the nerds...in my past. I was done with people being popular for being rich and people being hated for being different.
And here I am, 14 years later...back again. It's surreal to be back here in my hometown...living in my parent's house no less. Sometimes I take the family dog for walks around town...I plug in my 90's station and take off for a couple miles of uninterrupted walks down memory lane. And sometimes I'll hear a song, and I'll be in a familiar part of town, and I'm 16 again. For just a moment my life is simple again. My best friends and I drive around with our favorite songs blaring out the windows while we sing along. Our biggest worry is who's going to the football game, who we are taking to the next dance, or some big test that is basically the text book regurgitated in a multiple choice format that only counts for 10% of your final grade because you'll have ten more chances to get it right.
For three and a half minutes I look good in a cheerleading uniform...I have the best hair ever...I'm on the high honor roll...my voice resonates in to high notes easily...my favorite sport is soccer...I have a crush on no less than 5 guys...and my best friends are forever. I was never worried about anything that actually counts, even though it counted for so much back then. I had my youth, my health, and a future with so many possibilities! It's amazing how much one song can do for you...the memories it can bring back. Even though so much has changed in the world since those songs were played on the radio...those songs are frozen in time. Every time I hear them they sound exactly the same as they did when I was 16. I can't say that about much else...
A lot of people hated their teenage years. They wouldn't go back to high school for a million dollars. Well I probably shouldn't say that in this economy...but you get the point. It's not really high school that I reminisce about...I mean, I had a great time in high school...but it's just the feeling of being young and having the world open to you. The biggest thing I battled with in high school was my self-confidence...but so did everyone else so it was an even playing field that you could easily fake if needed. I had enough friends and acquaintances that I never really felt like I missed out on anything.
Most of my friends back then were more experienced in life than I was. I was a pretty "good girl" for the most part. I was a very naive girl as well. My friends weren't even delinquents...they just did things like smoke cigarettes and have sex. Sex was just not in my repertoire when I was that age. It wasn't even an option. From the day I learned what can happen when you have sex...namely, pregnancy and std's...I was bound and determined to wait until I was married. As I watched my friends lose their virginity to their boyfriends...I realized maybe marriage was a little ridiculous to wait for...but I really wanted it to be someone I loved.
Love may or may not have been why they decided to have sex...but it was going to be for me. I heard stories of girls sleeping with guys who never talked to them again...or who ignored them in the hallways...or who just had really horrible first times existing of dirty couches in dark basements with bad movies playing in the background. I didn't want that to be me. If I was going to give up all the shit you give up when you pop the cherry I was going to make sure it counted. I couldn't even imagine getting naked with a guy who would never talk to me again. Jesus Christ no way. My poor ego was fragile enough...but if I was going to give him the most intimate part of me I was not going to then be tossed aside like trash.
I'd have to say that's the one thing I wish I would have been a little more lenient on. Of all the things I did in high school...or, didn't do...that's one that I probably could have just gone ahead and bent the rules on a little bit. I don't regret my "first time" by any means. I was madly in love for two years before I got to finally hand in my V-card and it meant the world to me...but hindsight is 20/20. I wish I had some sweet teenage boy from high school I could friend on Facebook and always remember fondly--and maybe even have some harmful flirtatious "remember when" exchanges if we ran in to each other again. Instead it was my ex-boyfriend who now hates my guts and is completely cut out of my life. That part I'd like a do-over in.
But 16 was just a different time for me. It's crazy to think that it was almost half a lifetime ago...but not so crazy at the same time if you add up all the stuff that I've learned and things that have changed since then. I feel like I'm still close enough to 16 to really vividly remember what it was like to be that age. I know that my years are fading faster than I ever thought they would. I feel like I blinked and now I'm 30. Well...I'm not 30 yet...but in a little over a month I will be. That's most likely why I keep having these flashbacks lately of when I was younger.
It's like I've reached that age in my life when I want to look back and make sure I've accomplished what it was I wanted to accomplish. I almost feel like I've skipped to Erikson's last stage of life--Integrity vs Despair--and I am now looking back to see if it was all worth it. I'm not accepting death at such a young age by any means...but it sort of feels like my life is over. I feel like I missed the boat to middle adult-hood while I watch all my classmates get married and have children. It's like I'm standing on the shoreline of 20-something and am just going to tread water until I see the shoreline of "late adulthood to death."
Granted, I've always been a little over-dramatic...but it's really hard to not want to go back to a simpler time when I was at the same stage of life as everyone else. I don't think I have one 30 year old female friend who is single. I have some single friends...but they are all younger than me. If I do have friends who are about my age, and are single, it's because they have some fabulous career that keeps their life fulfilled. At this point in my life...I don't even have employment. Silly me for thinking that my 15 years of work experience and bachelor's degree was going to get me a job in my hometown...
When I think back to being 16 I can forget that I'm almost 30, single, unemployed, and living in my parent's basement. I became everything I worked so hard not to become. I was going to go to college and I was going to start my life! I was going to meet a fabulous man and start a fabulous career and then have a fabulous family. I was "going to..." I was going to, I was going to... Not that I can't still have all that. It's not like I'm dead. People start lives and families later in life these days...it's not unheard of. It just seems like such a far-fetched dream right now. When I was 16...it was so close I could smell it!
I know I need to stop living in my past...but my past was just seems like such a better place to be. There's a quote that says "The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was and the present worse than it is." It's true...I just wish I could convince my heart of this. My brain knows it. My brains knows I'm being irrational and just suffering from an I'm-turning-30-life-crisis...but my brain rarely wins those fights.
These walks down memory lane are borderline dangerous. Instead of fantasizing about how happy I used to be...I need to be focusing on my future. My future is the only thing I can change at this point. It's too late to go back and remember what it's like to not have to be an adult yet. It's too late...I'm a full-fledged adult. I couldn't imagine 29 or 30 when I was 16...and when I did, I imagined something so much different than this. I'm glad we have cable internet. I like cell-phones...I just wish people still spent time talking to each other face to face and less time talking to each other online.
People who knew me when I was 16, don't know me now. Unless we stayed friends and stayed in touch...I'm a completely different person. The world has changed so much...and I definitely followed suit. I'm sure some people have added me on Facebook with one particular memory of me and then they read all the bullshit I say and the pictures and videos I post and realize they don't even really know me. I've had lots of people add me and then delete me again. I've even had family add me and then delete me. I can't help it that I didn't stay that sweet 16 year old they thought they knew. Life is tough and I had to get tough right along with it.
My blogs are the real me though. When I write it's as close to getting to know me as anyone on the outside ever could. My Facebook is just an outlet for me to post crude pictures and make random thought statements. I don't take in to account that some people had one idea of me and then I ruin it by making anti-religious statements or declaring my support for gay rights. I swear and I'm rude. I have a low tolerance for bull-shit and judgmental assholes. I think little of men because they've constantly disappointed me. I know you can't lump all men in to one category...but it's just easier that way. I don't have a career that I love. I haven't met the man of my dreams. So I bitch. A lot. And then I bitch some more. And I try to do it with humor so people will stop fucking deleting me...but I can't please everyone.
Right now I'm only worried about pleasing myself I guess...and if mama ain't happy...well...mama ain't happy and she's going to bitch about it. It makes for good blogging. Or so I think.
I suppose at this point in the night really need to hit the hay. It sucks when I get a bug up my ass at midnight to type up a blog and it takes me an hour and a half...but such is life. And since I don't have a job to go to tomorrow...guess I get to sleep in. I'll probably dream about being 16 again anyway...
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