Beginning school with my children has triggered a sort of (painful) nostalgia, a (horrifying) set of memories from my own
I was a teensy bit...unstable...in my teenage years. Like a burrito in a microwave.
Oh how I now dream that I was once Rory Gilmore...grossly responsible, goal oriented, mature beyond her years...
But the past is the past, and I think to some degree, everyone fears the memories of their adolescence...right?
Because I love you, and you're good to me, I am going to brave the retelling of a horrible incident in my past. This is solely in the interest of nurturing our growing relationship.
It was my 11th grade year, my year to be presented at the local "club" for white middle class families, and I was high on life and too cool to go to any boring presentation rehearsals.
I showed up (late) to this cotillion, where I met
Just to give you some context: this was the year of formal cornrows too...you know the slightly thuggy, really awful, tightly pulled rows of hair, that ended with a big mass of curls on the back of your head. Really awful. Your probably wincing right now, just picturing it...
Anyway, so having been too cool to go to rehearsal, when it was my turn to be presented, my date and I stepped out into the bright lights of the country club and sweat-ed nervously as the announcer read off my information. He finished, and my date and I each took a huge step...in opposite directions.
We stopped and looked at each other...nervously grinning at the large number of well dressed people watching.
We visibly struggled back and forth for what seemed like an eternity, as people in the audience began to snicker.
"What are you doing!?" He whispered violently, through gritted teeth.. Finally, my date and I took off down the isle toward the back of the hall (and the exit)...as we should have.
Who knew a teenage boy knew how to walk through a presentation? I mean, really.
We reached the foyer and he quickly ditched me, calling me a moron. Jerk...I didn't want to be your date anyway.
You think that is the worst of it, right? Nope.
Just as the last family entered the foyer for meet and greets, my family approached me.
I stood there, humiliated and teary-eyed...yet, oozing with faked apathy and rebellion. Pshhh...embarrassed? Me? I meant to do that! I'm a rebel! In fact, I'm headed to the bathroom now to burn my bra and smoke a cigarette with the other rebels...
They weren't buying it. The jerky, not-really-a-family-member, older brother figure was there also, being the biggest antagonizer of all.
He just wouldn't let it go. My mom, sympathetically told him to shut up.
But at that point, I was done.
I lifted up my frilly, white, strapless dress in one hand, and reared back...gathering strength from the tips of my glass-slippered toes, to throw him the hardest right hook that my tired, uncomfortable, humiliated body could muster.
Blam.
He grabbed his jaw with an expression of total shock, before bursting into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. He loved it! Masochist.
Two little girls standing at the legs of the family next to us, all dressed up in their Sunday-best, stared up at me with huge, wide eyes and open mouths. Both of them completely unable to believe what they had just witnessed.
A few nearby fathers quickly and quietly escorted their families away from the poor, volatile, twitchy, wily-looking, Cinderella.
I quickly ran off to the bathroom where I cried and sucked my thumb for several hours before surrendering myself to the sympathies of my dear, loyal friends.
As an adult, I comfort myself knowing that we all have stories like this in our pasts.
Don't we? Hello? (crickets chirp) Anyone?
(Use the comment box to tell me about a particular memory you'd like to delete from your past.) Pin It
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