A field guide to growing up without growing apart
Recently one of my high school basketball teammates posted a photo of the team from our senior year, 2007, with a nostalgic caption about how much she missed “the best team/friends ever” and all the great times we had back then. I clicked “like” on […]
So, it is November already. Oh wait, November is more than half over! How did that happen? Well here we have a (very late) edition of the condition of the month. This month we all thought a bit about that dreaded affair: the high school […]
So there was this guy.
I know, I know, for as single as I am (hint: very) I write about boys a disproportional amount. How many crushes and almosts can a girl really talk about before her friends start to worry? But, please, bear with me (at least) one more time because this one means a lot to me. It even has a happy ending! I promise.
I’ve told you already about the river trips my family goes on every summer and what a magical thing they can be, throwing people together who otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance to really connect and helping to put our distracted lives into a focused perspective. We float and laugh, cry and hike, hug and play. These camping trips have shaped me into the person I am today, feeding me lesson after lesion that I’ve taken back to the real world and built my life around. It makes sense that this story begins with one.
On the river trip the summer before my senior year of high school I met this guy. To talk about who I was then is difficult; in many ways that 17 year old seems so different than who I am now. But what I internalized on that week long adventure has become a fixed point in my life that I can credit with so much of who I am today. It’s become a milestone for me, a moment in time that completely shifted who I thought I could be and how I’d go about getting there.
I was just about to start my senior year of high school, and while I never lacked for friends or things to do, I lacked what all 17 year olds lack, self-confidence and direction. When I met him it felt like he, Kelsey, was exactly what I never knew I was missing. Nearly 30, he had more confidence and charisma than anyone I’d ever met. His energy was endless and enthusiasm unwavering; he said what he felt and knew who he was.
He was my friend’s cousin, tagging along on our adventure for no reason other than because he’d been invited. In a way I was just tagging along too, showing up on these trips because my family chose to. He and I became fast friends on the trip, mostly because I like to listen and he liked to talk, but also because we were both at a crossroads in our lives, both trying to figure out which parts of who we were would carry over to who we were going to become. I was a blank canvas, about to apply to colleges and break out on my own, and he was faced with an ultimatum, marry his girlfriend or walk away.
Over the course of the week we became what I can only remember as inseparable, though it’s been almost ten years so it’s likely at least some things have been romanticized. Whenever I found myself alone he’d arrive soon after, asking me my thoughts or showing me something new. In group conversations he’d look to see if I was laughing, or move closer to me so we could better connect. When we played horseshoes I was on his team, when we played badminton I was his biggest threat. When we played Frisbee he always threw to me and when we played touch football he picked me up and spun me around instead of blocking. We were physical and verbal, emotional and crass, young and unafraid.
He saw me, took the time to ask what I thought about things, learn who I was, explore who I wanted to become. We were always the last to bed, staying up long after most people had left the campfire, talking of life or sports or whatever else we could think of. I felt like his go to person. And for that week I was.
On the last night we stayed up talking about life and love and he said some classic line like, I bet those high school boys are lining up for you. I insecurely brushed it off, shaking my head and laughing like that was absurd. I’ll never forget how he looked at me silently for a second and then exploded, standing up and yelling to the star-filled sky that what I’d just done was total bullshit, that it’s a travesty that girls like me ever feel like they aren’t amazing. He kept talking and pacing as he explained that confidence is the most attractive and important thing anyone can have and that being secure and strong and sure of yourself is the only thing that matters. We’re only wasting time worrying whether or not we’re beautiful enough or interesting, he said, just believe you are those things and it becomes true.
After a second he sat down next to me and made sure I looked him in the eyes when he said, you’re beautiful, never question that.
He made me promise to never forget it and while in the years since I have, of course, questioned that, I can always come back to that moment when he told me that beauty is in your actions.
When I came back to my life without him I didn’t know how to explain what had happened. How do you tell your high school friends that because a guy saw you, for the first time you saw yourself?
As I tried to tell them the story fell flat, my friends demanding the rest of the story. Is that all that happened? Are you sure you’re not leaving anything out? You didn’t kiss him!? How old was he? You’re lying! My vulnerable ego wanted, needed them to understand how I’d changed, so I hastily embellished a few details, hoping that saying we’d kissed would help them connect with what had happened.
It was immature and unnecessary and I eventually told my friends the truth of it, but in the years since I’ve thought of that week often, reminding myself of the significance of his words and the lessons I learned in trying to explain them afterward.
This weekend on a trip to Chicago I saw him again. I was nervous, of course, not wanting the man who has become a fixed point in my life to let me down, or worse, to let him down myself. I was about to see how much can change in ten years and find out whether my memory had led me astray. What if I’d imagined our connection, or if he’d forgotten me? What if he’d lost himself over the years, or what if hadn’t actually taken what he’d said to heart? With a deep breath I put on a brave face and walked through the door with confidence, shaking his hand along with all the other people I’d met here and there across my lifetime.
My fake confidence worked and I found myself talking freely and laughing along with the group. I took care to win over his kids and showed interest in what he said, doing my best to figure out if any of what we’d had would resurface.
It wasn’t long before it felt like he and I were alone.
He showed me things around his yard and met my eyes as he placed a fuzzy caterpillar on my hand. He moved closer to me as he scrolled through photos of cool insects on his phone and teased me as we played keep away with a football. All those feelings from before were right where we’d left them, just waiting to resurface.
When I asked him about the chestnut tree that my dad had given him after our river trip he led me through a gate and away from the others. Just the two of us walked around the other side of the house and talked like no time had passed. He joked, I provoked, and we saw each other again. I couldn’t stop smiling, not because I thought anything would happen or even should happen, but it just felt nice to be alone with him. Alone with an awesome man who in so many ways changed my life and was still that same person I had cherished.
He has no idea how much he shaped me with just one week, but it was nice to feel like I’d grown up to represent him well. He even offered up some advice like he did before, telling me that the one thing about kids is that once you have them, your time is no longer your own. Have a plan by 30, he said, because after that there is no time to change things up or figure anything out.
When it was time for us to leave he sought me out for a hug, holding me tightly so I knew we’d done right by each other. It felt good to be in his arms, in the way that everything I’d ever felt with him was valid and reciprocated. I knew he was proud of me, and he knew I was proud of him.
And better yet, as I walked out the door of his house, I realized I was proud of myself.
Okay, who am I kidding? If there’s one thing I have learned from spending the last four months teaching in a public high school, it’s that there are way more than five types of students. It’s really a grab-bag out there, with the future Presidents, […]
If you are new here, every month we princesses all opine on a single question or issue. This month we are talking about teaching! Pretty much everyone knows a teacher– or, in the case of Cinderslut, is one– and we all have our own opinions […]
I came of age with the first cell-phone technology, and I vividly remember the day when a high school friend first taught me how to use t9 to text. Since then cell phones have become even more ubiquitous, and today most people are never without their phones. My brother’s phone is constantly vibrating and beeping, alerting him to yet another text message, despite the fact that he claims not to have any real friends.
But I’ve been out of this world of texting for a while (living in a foreign country can do things like that to a person) and I’ve gone from sending dozens of texts per day to 1-2, if that. I vaguely remember the days when I would text my friends random things as I waited for the bus, or even while sitting in class. I remember agonizing over those precious 160 characters when composing a text to a guy I was interested in. Texting was a big deal, a major form of communication, but now I kind of feel like I’ve forgotten how to do it. I can’t text anymore.
Last night I got a text-message out of the blue from a high school friend. He offered a friendly greeting and we exchanged a few texts, just chatting about life and what was going on. But the entire time, I felt uncomfortable! I wondered, why is he texting me? Is he just really bored, or does he actually care about what is going on in my life? The fact that I was texting a man who was not my husband made things even weirder. Of course, this is a relationship that is completely platonic—I haven’t even kept in touch with him over the years, until just recently. But pulling out my phone and texting him immediately reminded me of texts from my past—late night, emotionally charged messages to and from my ex-boyfriend, flirty responses to a “How’s it going,” text from a cute guy, desperately trying to come up with a reason to text my latest crush…
The guy who was texting me wasn’t flirting or interested in me, and he’d probably think I was nuts for even worrying about whether our casual text-versation was okay. But I couldn’t help feeling weird about it. I purposely waited at least 10-15 minutes before responding to his initial message, eager to not be seen as too eager. I reminded myself to refrain from using emoticons of any kind. And I kept asking myself, what’s his agenda?
Is it sad that when a guy texts me, my first thought is to question his motives? It probably speaks to the fact that I’ve never had close friends who were guys, so my only experience with them is colored by either purposely keeping things ultra-platonic (no texting) or secretly wanting to be more than friends. Laughably, it honestly struck me as weird for someone to just strike up a conversation with me via text, although I know I used to do that quite regularly myself. But these days I’m more used to maintaining my relationships via long Skype dates and the occasional email. I don’t even text my closest friends much, unless it is with a specific purpose in mind, like making plans to actually hang out.
Ultimately, I couldn’t shake the awkwardness I felt about texting this guy, so our conversation naturally died out after a while. And I felt relieved! I don’t need the weirdness of wondering why he’s talking to me, or the stress (albeit minor) of crafting those 160 characters into an appropriate response. For me, a married twenty-something currently living thousands of miles away from my husband, I don’t want to even mess with that elusive area, being “friends” with the opposite sex. But this experience was also a reminder of a way of communicating that I had nearly forgotten about. Maybe I’ll pick up my phone more often and shoot a text to one of my friends. But, then again, maybe I won’t.
I will never have another best friend. When I was little I used to manipulate other people into doing things I wanted by promising to be their best friend. You’d be surprised how often it worked, most people needing little more than an “I’ll be […]
So, when I was a junior in high school, I read War and Peace. At the time it took me less than a month to conquer this 1,400-page, giant beast of Russian literature. And, although, I have always been a re-reader (most of my favourite […]
What is an ideal or aspiration that you held in high school but have since let go of?
It has almost been six years since the naughty princesses all graduated high school. Our ten-year reunions are still a ways off but close enough to make us uncomfortable. Do we really want to face the people we knew in high school– or, should I say, the people who knew us in high school. In the past six years we have all changed from who we were when we walked the hallways of our high schools. The real purpose of this condition of the month was to give each of the princess a moment to reflect about how the past six years have changed us: what has been lost and what has been made new.
When I look back to the person I was when I graduated high school, I sometimes don’t even recognize her. This is not to say that I’ve undergone some radical personality transformation in the past six years, but more that what I thought about the world and what I wanted to accomplish in it were vastly different from what I think and want to accomplish now.
When I left high school behind I was devastated to be leaving my comfortable small town home, and terrified of life in the big city. It all seemed too big. The only reason I risked it was because I knew there was nothing more for me to learn from my hometown. I had dreams of going to college to major in creative writing, find my muse, and become a best-selling poet (because that is such an easy field to break into). However, the life I thought I was getting into when I went to college ended up being so very different than I had pictured. But not in a bad way. I was shocked to realize that I did not hate living in a big city, and going to a big state college. It was easier than I had thought to make friends, and I quickly learned to love exploring the campus and the city with my fellow naughty princesses (most of whom I met my first quarter). I was also shocked to realize after a couple quarters of classes that I could see no future for myself in creative writing. As my world changed and expanded, so did my dreams. I didn’t want to be alone, writing at a desk. I wanted to be out in foreign countries, meeting people, learning their stories, and building relationships. Suddenly I found myself taking all the Spanish classes I could, becoming an international studies major, and dreaming of being a real voice of change for parts of the world that didn’t often get a voice.
Sometimes I think about my old dream to be a writer, but the fact that I’ve let go of it doesn’t make me sad. Our dreams must evolve as we do, and I can’t wait to see how mine continue to grow and change as time goes on.
— Snow Whore
What if I haven’t changed at all since high school? Since moving back home, my physical location sure hasn’t changed (though I suppose my magazine collages of inspirational quotes and The O.C. have been stripped from the walls), all my clothes still fit (even the jeans), and my in-person friends are now the same ones I knew back then. My parents still cook and I do dishes, I fight with my brother for not spending enough time with me, and I even leave the house around the same time I used to in the morning (though going to work with a bunch of old men isn’t quite the same as sitting in class with angsty teenagers). Not much has changed really, I’m just older and notably less convinced about the promise of an outstanding future. I haven’t let go of my aspirations, but now that the promise of life-affirming college has passed me by I don’t know what comes next. Sure I could look forward to finding the perfect job, falling in love or having children, and I’m human–of course I want those things, but I can’t send in an application for love to happen on this date and in this way (though I can apply for a child…). So who knows if my life will go well from here on out? College was an automatic win, something that couldn’t go wrong even if I tried, but now that it’s over what do I have left to really expect? Anything can happen-which is a good thing mostly-but I can no longer say that I have a moment in time to look forward to. I’ll look forward to ideas, things I hope I’ll get to do, but I’ve had to let go of my timeline, because from here on out nothing is certain.
I think that I have only gained new and improved aspirations over the years, so the ones that were important to me in high school now seem quite lame in comparison. I’m trying to think…what were my dreams when I was 16?
I’ve had my life planned out for a while, and to be honest, a lot of these dreams have come true. But now there are other things on my to-do list that I never could have dreamed of when I was 16. Go on a hot-air balloon ride over Cappadocia. Swim in the Dead Sea. Teach 90 of the world’s future leaders that freedom, peace, and their dreams are worth fighting for. I think when I was in high school I had good dreams, but was also a bit too hung up on ideals like looking pretty, being popular, and having boys like me. I didn’t have any of those things at the time, so they were very appealing. Luckily, though, as I’ve changed over the years my dreams have too, or at least they have grown. So what do you do when all your dreams come true? Start over and make new ones.
— Cinderslut
So, I confess, I wrote this month’s question, although with no particular answer in mind. I really just wanted to give us all a space to think about how ideas and ideals and how they have evolved in us over the past six years or so. For the past couple of weeks, I have been mulling over this question on and off. It has been an interesting experience to try to revisit my high-school self, to remember her thoughts and dreams. And really, as Sleepy Booty also wrote, in a lot of ways I am quite similar to my high school self. I don’t really feel like I had a moment where I ‘rediscovered’ or ‘reinvented’ myself; I am, has always been, and in all likelihood will continue to be me. Rather than being dramatic, the changes in myself have been subtle, slowly growing on each other through time—new birth out of something that was already there, but needed to be developed. I did, however, out of this period of reflection, come up with two fairly major ‘developments’ in my ideals and perceptions since my high school days.
1) I have become less dark. Now this sounds a little strange, I will admit, but in my own way I was a goth in high school. Now back up, I definitely didn’t wear chains and black clothes or smoke or any of the other stereotypes associated with that word. I was definitely too nerdy and not cool enough for any of that. But what I was, however, was dark. I loved sad endings, depressing poems, remorse—anything with a streak of bitterness through it. In my tenth grade English class we did a unit on creative writing. I recently read through the two pieces I have saved in my email from that unit: one dealt with a man named Winston whose cowardly decision during warfare resulted in his friends’ deaths and who later in life is constantly haunted by talking images of their severed heads, the other dealt with another man, Charlie, who had to bear the guilt the for accidently destroying an entire planet. You see—I sort of had issues. And to be honest, I still do love tragedy: I would pick Wurthering Heights over anything by Jane Austen any day of the week. But, I think, I also have learned to love the light. I still think tragedy can be beautiful, but I tend now to see the goodness and hope that is offered by it. I no longer dismiss something happy as silly or less striking. Goodness and light are equally striking as darkness and pain—one simply highlights the other.
2) This second change is slightly harder for me to describe, the best I can do right now is to say, I’ve become less dramatic. I guess what I mean by this is that I feel like my feet are on firmer ground than they were in high school. When I was in high school, I felt totally at the mercy of events around me. If something in my life went wrong, I was in turmoil. I remember, for instance, when I decided to attend a state school versus the private college I had wanted to attend but couldn’t afford: if I could count how many nights I cried my heart out over this it would be some grand number, probably more than a hundred. Now, however, decisions like that—or even terrible challenges in life—have less power to rock me. This is definitely the result of slow change in my life and growth in my faith. In a way, probably coming through the disappointments and challenges helped me gain a sense of perspective. Of course I still get grieved and upset in life, but I feel like my feet are on the Rock. Standing there, I am no longer at the mercy of the waves.