So, I've been reading my old journals the last few weeks. I was pretty meticulous about writing in them during middle school and high school. I'm aware of the information that's in them and I remember being a sad teenager, but it's still been hard to relive it. It's been a roller coaster of emotions, but it's also really inspired me to start writing again (I all but completely stopped when I got together with my husband...).
In the year 2000, I went to five funerals in six months. At the time, I don't really think I realized how much it affected me and how much it shaped who I would become. That year started with me breaking up with my first "real" boyfriend and my journals are a memoir of me trying to get over him. We only dated two months and he was hardly a good boyfriend, but still I obsessed. And it took me years to realize it was my way of coping with all the death in my life. We broke up in the middle of January; my grandmother died two weeks later; then a classmate passed away three months later from cancer. Then two months after that, my grandfather passed away and was buried on my fifteenth birthday; then, my cousin miscarried her baby at six months, just a week later and it was followed with the death of a friend and neighbor by a car accident two weeks after that. It was, by far, the worst year of my life. And it was compounded by all the pettiness and just plain awfulness that comes with being in high school. I remember people at the time saying that they were the best years of your life and even then I thought they were nuts. This same ex-boyfriend ended up dating someone I had been friends with for almost ten years and I felt incredibly betrayed and angry about it. And looking back on it and reading how I felt, I still remember that girl. I still remember how hurt I was and the feelings actually came back. I wasn't necessarily still sad for myself, but my heart ached for this young girl, who was so lost and so alone and so desperate for someone to listen to her and understand her. But, at the same time, there were some decisions I made that I now feel so proud of eleven years later.
That same ex that dated the friend asked my permission to go to the freshman dance with her, because he knew I was upset about her asking him. Every fiber of my being wanted to tell him not to go with her and to go with me instead, but I told him that I wanted him to be happy and that he should go. For whatever reason, I felt such a sense of pride after reading these words now, knowing that I made the right choice. And I honestly can't say whether or not I'd make that same choice today. I tried so hard to still see the good in both of them. I tried so hard to convince myself that he actually cared about my feelings and I tried hard to believe that she truly didn't know how much she hurt me. It took a lot out of me to be the bigger person. But, I also saw a lot of me always being the bigger person and always putting other people first. It was a lesson I learned pretty early, that sometimes (dare I say, most times), you need to put yourself first. I remember always hearing that it was important to think of others before you think of yourself, but at twenty-six years old, I no longer agree with that. Throughout life, I've found that the only person I can count on 100% of the time is myself. You have friends that you trust and people that you count on, but regardless of your relationship with someone or how long you've known them, they will, at times let you down. It's important to look out for yourself, because others won't.
I've always been far too emotional for my own good. I've acted irrationally and lashed out before really dealing with my feelings and it's obvious that's always been the case. I like to think I've mellowed out quite a bit, but Ryan and I were actually discussing tonight how I might deal with certain things when we have children. I have never, in my entire life, been drunk...I've never tried any drugs or smoked a cigarette. The drinking is a control issue, that stems from the death of my step-brother when I was nine years old. He had just turned twenty-one and it is believed that he was driving drunk. As a result, he and his best friend were killed in a car accident. At nine years old, I was devastated, but it didn't truly affect me until I got older and people around me started drinking. Ryan and I had SCREAMING fights about him drinking when we were younger than twenty-one and on his twenty-first birthday I was a mess. I was convinced that when I got off the phone with him that night (in which he had the typical twenty-first birthday experience that I could not particpate in, since I was still only nineteen), it would be the last time I ever got to talk to him. I just knew the next time I saw him, it would be at his funeral. I knew at the time it was ridiculous and irrational (but I actually learned that my step-sister went through the same thing when my brother turned twenty-one), but I reacted based on feelings and fear. And tonight I tried to convey to Ryan that I don't want to be that mother that freaks out when her seventeen-year-old comes home drunk. I want my kids to know they can always come home, but at the same time I want them to be responsible. And my concern is that this fear will come across as anger and instead of teaching my kids how to be responsible drinkers, it will just show them that their mother freaks out when they drink. The honest truth is that I want my kids to be like me. I want them to be the kinds of people that never touch a drink or a cigarette or any kind of drug, but the reality of the situation is that they probably will. And I realize that this is at least twenty years in my future, but I'm the kind of person that worries about these things. I want my kids to learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of others that came before me. But, while I wasn't the kind of the kid that partied a lot, I wasn't without issue. As I mentioned, I was lonely and scared and horribly bitter. It might just be journals that I'm reading, but there is a clear story arc and clear character development. That journal holds every major event in my life that happened before the age of sixteen. It holds all of my deepest secrets and deepest regrets and I mention more than once that it's the only place I can go to know I'm not being judged.
I desperately want to protect my children from the feelings I felt when I was a teenager. I read the words that I wrote so many years ago and I feel for the girl that wrote them. It seems like the words of someone else, but it's real and it's raw and it's painful. And I can't stand the thought of knowing that my kids are, at some point, going to experience these same things. They might not be as emotional as I was, and I certainly hope they don't have to deal with as much loss as I did, but it won't change the pettiness of high school. So, while I hope that they're like me in the sense that they don't "party" too much, I also hope they can make choices that make me proud, even something as small as letting an ex-boyfriend go to a school dance with a former friend. But, most importantly, I hope they can look back on the choices they made and the person they were and be proud of the people they grew up to be. I saw myself go from a happy-go-lucky teenager, who was so concerned with finding a boyfriend, to a bitter high school student, just barely making it through every day and watching her friends betray her one by one. Unfortunately, most of the bitterness stayed with me and the happy-go-lucky got lost somewhere between boyfriends, betrayals and burials, but I've come out on the other end. While I'm sure that my high school experience wasn't that much different than most, I think that it ultimately shaped the person who I grew up to be, in both good ways and bad ways. I found that perfect man I was so desperately hoping for, I've realized who my true friends are and I look around and realize I've reached every goal I have ever set for myself. While I still hold on to a lot of that fear and some of that cynicism, I do believe I'm happier than most people are at my age. And that truly is the happy ending (beginning?) I never thought I'd get.
No comments:
Post a Comment