I once had a friend who didn’t believe in love. “Love is nothing more than the state of being incredibly comfortable with someone.” Being a die-hard romantic, I didn’t believe him—or should I say, I didn’t understand him—at the time. Love is intense. Love is all-encompassing. Love is the idea of not being able to live without one another. My all-time favorite movie quote, from one of my all-time favorite movies, When Harry Met Sally, is “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” Now that is love—running through the streets of New York City at eleven fifty on New Year’s Eve to profess your feelings to the just-realized love of your life. So when I heard his theory, I simply couldn’t accept the idea that love was nothing more than being comfortable. However, as I delve ever deeper and deeper into my relationship with my husband, my concept of love is gradually shifting from the can’t-live-without-you notion to the comfortable notion.
On those days (weeks) when he’s driving me absolutely crazy, when I feel underappreciated, when it’s all I can do to not punch him in the face, I think about how much easier life would be if I were single. Oh, the things I could do! I wouldn’t have to clean up after him all the time—picking up dirty socks from every corner of the house, always doing the dishes (or redoing the dishes because he loaded the dishwasher wrong or forgot that sometimes you have to clean the outside of a pot, too), gathering chocolate milk glasses from both of the tables and the floor of the living room, constantly fluffing and rehanging the hand towel in the bathroom since apparently it’s difficult for him to dry his hands while the towel is neatly folded on the hanger. I could watch whatever I wanted, instead of flipping between episodes of North to Alaska and Gun It With Benny Spies and Deadliest Catch. I wouldn’t be updated on the fishing report every Saturday morning via Outdoor GPS on Comcast SportNet. I could go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I could go on a vacation without having to worry about being gone too long, knowing that he doesn’t sleep (even more so than usual) when I’m not there. I could make a date with my girlfriends without having to double check on his plans, only to get a text halfway into my mojito: Where are you? When are you going to be home? Your son is being a brat.
Despite his drawbacks, there are some fabulous things about my husband. It’s certainly not that he’s perfect—far from it, as am I. But, thus far, we’ve been perfect for each other. We have the same essential political, philosophical, and spiritual views. We both have an incredibly sarcastic sense of humor, spending most of our time bickering and name-calling, but always with a sense of love. We both like our me-time. He’ll plan a five-day hunting trip, and while his friends’ wives are complaining about their husbands being gone so long and asking why they can’t just do the trip in three days, I’m making plans for a girls’ night out, a girls’ night in, and a night of staying up too late writing and watching Lifetime Television For Women. I’ll eat shellfish every night, since he’s allergic to it and I never cook it at home, and wolf down the entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie in one sitting. Five days of not having to entertain and clean up after and feed my husband. He comes back and we’re both refreshed. He and I are both homebodies, preferring to stay in and rent a movie On-Demand. Although he’s quite sensitive and in touch with his feminine-side—he is usually the one to initiate a conversation about our feelings, cries at movies and during every episode of A Baby Story and lets our son paint his toenails—ultimately he is a man’s man. He knows how to fix a clogged toilet and an electric short and can open a jar of pickles. He hunts and fishes and keeps our freezer full of meat. And I like that because those are all things I can’t do and have no desire to learn about. He dresses and looks like a man. His attire consists of a jeans, a graphic tee—his favorites being Rocky, Tom and Jerry, and a brown one with some kind of fish logo on it—a baseball cap, and depending on the weather, either New Balance tennis shoes, ropers, or a pair of slippers that look close enough to real shoes he thinks it’s okay to wear them outdoors and in public. He shaves occasionally, maybe weekly, and if I ask nicely, for special events. But I like that. I don’t want a man who waxes and tans and plucks. I want a man’s man. If I wanted to be with someone girly, I’d be a lesbian (a line partially stolen from my gay friend Robert, who used to complain about drag queens and transvestites, stating that if he wanted to sleep with someone in a dress he wouldn’t be gay).
But as much as I love my husband, as much as we do fit together, as much as the things about him that drive me crazy really aren’t that bad, the real reason I don’t want to leave my husband is that I’m just too damn comfortable. I don’t want to start over. I think back about all my old boyfriends and the one significant thing that separates them from my husband is the level of comfort. We may have had things in common, had a physical attraction to one another, enjoyed each other’s company, but when it came down to it, I was never completely comfortable being myself. Of course, that thought continues on, and I think about how I wouldn’t want to be single forever. I like having someone else around, like waking up with someone, like having someone to eat dinner with. Although I certainly enjoy having some time to myself, being a part of a couple is a nice feeling. It makes me feel safe, all warm and fuzzy. But I’m fairly good looking, pretty smart, have a reasonably good personality. With a wax, a pair of Spanx, and some good concealer, I could get myself a new man. I could experience that first-date, first-kiss feeling once again, the butterflies in the stomach, the check-ins with girlfriends So this is what he said…What do you think that means? Does he like me, like, like-like me? Or is he just trying to get in my pants? Maybe he'd send me flowers to work, or actually buy me a birthday present. So I think about starting over, finding someone who appreciates me, someone who’s around more often, someone who knows how to clean a bathroom, someone who knows what he’s doing with his life, someone who can easily answer the question “So, what do you do?”
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
What Not to Date (four)
In the eighth grade, I had my shortest relationship ever. Kach Morales—thirty-nine hours. Kach and I had had an on-again-off-again-but-never-really-together relationship for about two years. He was a year older than me, and the cousin of one of my good friends, Sam Morales. In seventh grade, I had my chance with Kach, but in an instance of middle school miscommunication (as in not telling someone you like him/her “that way” when you talk on the phone every night) I went out with Aaron Butler instead, and he went out with Laurie Anderson. That year, Kach wrote me the first note I ever got from a boy. I can still vividly remember reading it while sitting in Mr. Johnson’s Life Science class after lunch, when he’d secretly handed it to me, folded in eighths, with my name and “Don’t show Noone” written on front.
Michelle,
So what’s up nothing here. Are you still going out with Aaron? Are you going to get Aaron something for Valentines? Who do you like? Do you like anyone else besides Aaron? because I still like you a lot. I was going to ask if we wanted to see each other and go somewhere + If it went good I was probably going to ask you out, but Aaron asked you out. But remember this I still like you a lot. Last night I said “I don’t care” because I did care I didn’t want you to go out with Aaron because I liked you. Better go bell’s going to ring. Write me back! (Today)
Love Always,
Kach Morales
P.S. I might still get you something for Valentine’s.
He did get me something for Valentine’s, although after much debate, I got something for Aaron instead of him (my mom, of course, tried to explain that if I was contemplating who to get something for Valentine’s Day for, perhaps I should reconsider who I was going out with. And I, like most twelve-year-old girls, didn’t heed her advice). Had I been smart, I would have broken up with Aaron directly upon reading this incredibly sweet note, saving myself both a month of Aaron, and four months of (not talking to) Tony. Instead, I stuck it out, and after Aaron, I moved on to Tony. Kach and I never moved past really good friends.
The next year, he went on to high school, but for a while we continued to talk on the phone at least a couple nights a week. Finally, finally, he asked me out. I called him the next day. He answered but said he was on the phone with Sam and that he’d call me back later. He never did. The next day I talked to Sam, who said he had hadn’t talked to Kach the night before. I called him after school, where he then told me he just didn’t think it would work out for us to go out since he was in high school and I was still in middle school. When would we even see each other? We continued to be friends throughout high school, going through phases of intense best-friendness, and not talking to each other for months. Over the years, we took a couple more stabs at it. The summer before my junior year we enjoyed a six-week “friends with benefits” session—which included both the traditional sense of the term, and him providing me with free food from the fast-food restaurant he worked at. Then during the school year, at a party at my house, we kissed. I was however, as I was in seventh grade, going out with someone else. And, again, as in seventh grade, I should have dumped that one and tried with Kach. But I didn’t. But we each knew if we ever really needed anything, the other would be there, and that sense of true, but not consistent, friendship lasted until I moved.
Michelle,
So what’s up nothing here. Are you still going out with Aaron? Are you going to get Aaron something for Valentines? Who do you like? Do you like anyone else besides Aaron? because I still like you a lot. I was going to ask if we wanted to see each other and go somewhere + If it went good I was probably going to ask you out, but Aaron asked you out. But remember this I still like you a lot. Last night I said “I don’t care” because I did care I didn’t want you to go out with Aaron because I liked you. Better go bell’s going to ring. Write me back! (Today)
Love Always,
Kach Morales
P.S. I might still get you something for Valentine’s.
He did get me something for Valentine’s, although after much debate, I got something for Aaron instead of him (my mom, of course, tried to explain that if I was contemplating who to get something for Valentine’s Day for, perhaps I should reconsider who I was going out with. And I, like most twelve-year-old girls, didn’t heed her advice). Had I been smart, I would have broken up with Aaron directly upon reading this incredibly sweet note, saving myself both a month of Aaron, and four months of (not talking to) Tony. Instead, I stuck it out, and after Aaron, I moved on to Tony. Kach and I never moved past really good friends.
The next year, he went on to high school, but for a while we continued to talk on the phone at least a couple nights a week. Finally, finally, he asked me out. I called him the next day. He answered but said he was on the phone with Sam and that he’d call me back later. He never did. The next day I talked to Sam, who said he had hadn’t talked to Kach the night before. I called him after school, where he then told me he just didn’t think it would work out for us to go out since he was in high school and I was still in middle school. When would we even see each other? We continued to be friends throughout high school, going through phases of intense best-friendness, and not talking to each other for months. Over the years, we took a couple more stabs at it. The summer before my junior year we enjoyed a six-week “friends with benefits” session—which included both the traditional sense of the term, and him providing me with free food from the fast-food restaurant he worked at. Then during the school year, at a party at my house, we kissed. I was however, as I was in seventh grade, going out with someone else. And, again, as in seventh grade, I should have dumped that one and tried with Kach. But I didn’t. But we each knew if we ever really needed anything, the other would be there, and that sense of true, but not consistent, friendship lasted until I moved.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
State of Adolesence (two)
One of the things that helps us make it through hard times is knowing that it’s only going to last a short while. The “This too shall pass” concept. Middle school is only going to last three years. High school is only going to last four years. College is only going to last five (seven, eight) years. We go in, do our time and it’s over. We graduate and move on into the “real world.” The pettiness, the gossip, the backstabbing, the cliques—they’ll all end when high school ends. But the thing is, they don’t. They say once and addict, always an addict. I say once an adolescent, always an adolescent. Once the self-conscious state of puberty kicks in, it never goes away. High school continues throughout your life. How many times since you graduated have you said, “It was just like high school”? That’s because life is a continuous cycle of high school, and our mindset takes a lot longer than expected to outgrow that awkward, insecure state of adolescence. Some people were lucky, and this insecurity never really started. They were confident through school, sure of themselves, immune to the frivolous banter and rumors, easily made friends with everyone. And nowadays, they’re still like that. But those folks are few and far between, and most of us are still just as scared and self-loathing as we were ten, fifteen, twenty, years ago. . For most of us, life is just a constant state of adolescence.
A huge part of adolescence is the cliques. Yet since then, every job I’ve worked at has been at least partially divided into cliques. Cooks, servers, busboys, and bartenders, although they may occasionally hang out together, are definitely in a class system. Nordstrom is divided into cliques, mainly through departments. There are popular groups, nerdy groups, leadership groups, alternative groups. Obviously, Savvy and TBD are the cool uperclassmen. BP are like the cool freshmen and sophomores. Shoes is the popular group that is above being popular. Customer service and human resources are your leadership group. And I don’t even have to tell you where housekeeping, maintenance, and the stockpeople fit into that equation.
But if you really want to see a replica of adolescent cliques in adults, you don’t even have to leave the high school. The teachers are involved in a class system as intricate and vital as the students. There are the jocks, the preps, the nerds, the leadership crew. Often they’re divided up by department. Just like with the students, there’s some overlapping, but overall, the lines are clear. Of course, health and PE teachers make up most of the jocks, the science teachers are nerds, and the English teachers are hippies, and the social studies teachers are leadership. For three years, I taught at a public high school. I sat in the staff lounge (not that five tables in a monotone beige room with two microwaves and a broken computer constitutes a lounge, but that’s what you get at a public school) for lunch most every day. Five teachers sat at the corner table—Mike Rogers, PE; Linda Fisher, PE; Kevin Gibson, varsity boys’ basketball coach; Mark Webb, varsity boy’s baseball coach; and Kathy Knight, math. How Mrs.Knight, having no sports affiliation whatsoever, was accepted to the table, I do not know. Just like with my group of girlfriends in middle and high school, if one was missing, everyone at their table knew where they were. “Where’s Mike,” an outsider would ask. “Oh, he’s helping out some students in the gym today.” “Oh, Kathy? She took a long weekend to go see the new grandbaby. She is just so excited about that little one.” They of course were friendly and talked with those of us at other tables if the conversation was right, but no one else ever sat at that table. You just didn’t. I’m sure if I had one day sat at their table, they wouldn’t have kicked me out. But they, along with everyone else in the room, would have looked at me funny. For the most part, I sat a table with the same two or three other people as well. Occasionally, one of us would sit elsewhere, or someone would join our table—in high school, teachers don’t always get to eat lunch, and most of them do it in their rooms while grading papers or preparing lessons. But no one else ever sat at the jock table, and not one of them ever sat anywhere else. Ever.
Eventually you find your clique. You establish a group of friends—comprised of those you’ve gathered along the way from middle school, high school, college, and jobs—and you build up a level of comfort, stability, and self-confidence. But in the meantime, those same odd feelings from middle school, high school, college, all come flooding back, and you're insecure, and scared, and jealous. Your friends are finding real jobs, are moving up in the world, are finding $1800 a month apartments in Washington DC and sipping red wine on their balconies after spending the day at the farmer’s and artist’s market. But you tell yourself, things will be different, things will change, when I get married and have a family. And they do. But not the way you'd thought. Those feelings are still there. While you're at home, coaxing a two-year-old to sleep, cuddling up in his toddler bed, singing “You Are My Sunshine,” your friends are gallivanting around Europe, or going to 11 o’clock shows at Slabtown, because you're only young once you know. So again, there it is. That indecision. That jealously. That fleeting though, did I choose the right path? Am I doing what I really want to do? I'm jealous of the friend with a steady job, a handsome husband, three beautiful kids and an amazing Pottery Barn House. Yet I'm jealous of the single bar-hopping-Europe-traveling friend. And here I am stuck in the middle. Thirty-something, and still unsure. In high school, I thought by now I'd have it together. I'd know what I was doing. I'd know what I wanted and I'd have it.
In high school, I had my ten-year plan mapped out: I was going to go to college—community college for two years (not four), and then transfer to a university to finish the last two years (not three). The summer after graduation (not two springs before), I’d get married and get a job teaching middle or high school Language Arts (accomplished one goal!). I’d work for two years (not one month) then get pregnant and have the baby the summer after my third year teaching (not the spring of my first year). Two years later (not four), I’d do it again, then in another two and another two—for a total of four kids. I’d continue teaching (not get laid off)—maybe full-time, maybe part-time—and in the summers, my family and I would operate an Ice Cream Truck company (not work retail, only to inadvertently spend the entire pay check on “sensible flats” and mom jeans that fit my increasingly large ass). I knew then that I wanted to be a teacher, to have a big family. Even now, with some of that accomplished, I still second-guess myself, thinking, This isn’t quite what I’d imagined…
The truth is, life is all high school—the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousy, the “What do I want to do when I grow up.” Adolescence isn't a period from age eleven to seventeen. It's your whole fucking life. And like they told us back then, Suck It Up, Learn From It, One Day You’ll Look Back At This And Laugh, and Get Ready for the Real World—whenever it may arrive.
A huge part of adolescence is the cliques. Yet since then, every job I’ve worked at has been at least partially divided into cliques. Cooks, servers, busboys, and bartenders, although they may occasionally hang out together, are definitely in a class system. Nordstrom is divided into cliques, mainly through departments. There are popular groups, nerdy groups, leadership groups, alternative groups. Obviously, Savvy and TBD are the cool uperclassmen. BP are like the cool freshmen and sophomores. Shoes is the popular group that is above being popular. Customer service and human resources are your leadership group. And I don’t even have to tell you where housekeeping, maintenance, and the stockpeople fit into that equation.
But if you really want to see a replica of adolescent cliques in adults, you don’t even have to leave the high school. The teachers are involved in a class system as intricate and vital as the students. There are the jocks, the preps, the nerds, the leadership crew. Often they’re divided up by department. Just like with the students, there’s some overlapping, but overall, the lines are clear. Of course, health and PE teachers make up most of the jocks, the science teachers are nerds, and the English teachers are hippies, and the social studies teachers are leadership. For three years, I taught at a public high school. I sat in the staff lounge (not that five tables in a monotone beige room with two microwaves and a broken computer constitutes a lounge, but that’s what you get at a public school) for lunch most every day. Five teachers sat at the corner table—Mike Rogers, PE; Linda Fisher, PE; Kevin Gibson, varsity boys’ basketball coach; Mark Webb, varsity boy’s baseball coach; and Kathy Knight, math. How Mrs.Knight, having no sports affiliation whatsoever, was accepted to the table, I do not know. Just like with my group of girlfriends in middle and high school, if one was missing, everyone at their table knew where they were. “Where’s Mike,” an outsider would ask. “Oh, he’s helping out some students in the gym today.” “Oh, Kathy? She took a long weekend to go see the new grandbaby. She is just so excited about that little one.” They of course were friendly and talked with those of us at other tables if the conversation was right, but no one else ever sat at that table. You just didn’t. I’m sure if I had one day sat at their table, they wouldn’t have kicked me out. But they, along with everyone else in the room, would have looked at me funny. For the most part, I sat a table with the same two or three other people as well. Occasionally, one of us would sit elsewhere, or someone would join our table—in high school, teachers don’t always get to eat lunch, and most of them do it in their rooms while grading papers or preparing lessons. But no one else ever sat at the jock table, and not one of them ever sat anywhere else. Ever.
Eventually you find your clique. You establish a group of friends—comprised of those you’ve gathered along the way from middle school, high school, college, and jobs—and you build up a level of comfort, stability, and self-confidence. But in the meantime, those same odd feelings from middle school, high school, college, all come flooding back, and you're insecure, and scared, and jealous. Your friends are finding real jobs, are moving up in the world, are finding $1800 a month apartments in Washington DC and sipping red wine on their balconies after spending the day at the farmer’s and artist’s market. But you tell yourself, things will be different, things will change, when I get married and have a family. And they do. But not the way you'd thought. Those feelings are still there. While you're at home, coaxing a two-year-old to sleep, cuddling up in his toddler bed, singing “You Are My Sunshine,” your friends are gallivanting around Europe, or going to 11 o’clock shows at Slabtown, because you're only young once you know. So again, there it is. That indecision. That jealously. That fleeting though, did I choose the right path? Am I doing what I really want to do? I'm jealous of the friend with a steady job, a handsome husband, three beautiful kids and an amazing Pottery Barn House. Yet I'm jealous of the single bar-hopping-Europe-traveling friend. And here I am stuck in the middle. Thirty-something, and still unsure. In high school, I thought by now I'd have it together. I'd know what I was doing. I'd know what I wanted and I'd have it.
In high school, I had my ten-year plan mapped out: I was going to go to college—community college for two years (not four), and then transfer to a university to finish the last two years (not three). The summer after graduation (not two springs before), I’d get married and get a job teaching middle or high school Language Arts (accomplished one goal!). I’d work for two years (not one month) then get pregnant and have the baby the summer after my third year teaching (not the spring of my first year). Two years later (not four), I’d do it again, then in another two and another two—for a total of four kids. I’d continue teaching (not get laid off)—maybe full-time, maybe part-time—and in the summers, my family and I would operate an Ice Cream Truck company (not work retail, only to inadvertently spend the entire pay check on “sensible flats” and mom jeans that fit my increasingly large ass). I knew then that I wanted to be a teacher, to have a big family. Even now, with some of that accomplished, I still second-guess myself, thinking, This isn’t quite what I’d imagined…
The truth is, life is all high school—the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousy, the “What do I want to do when I grow up.” Adolescence isn't a period from age eleven to seventeen. It's your whole fucking life. And like they told us back then, Suck It Up, Learn From It, One Day You’ll Look Back At This And Laugh, and Get Ready for the Real World—whenever it may arrive.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
State of Adolsence (one)
Tomorrow is my first day back. I’ve got to decide what to wear. The first day, of course, is the most important. You don’t have a second chance at a first impression, you know. Your appearance on the first day back dictates how people will treat you for the remainder. It shows what you’ve been doing, how you’ve grown, how you’ve changed. You don’t want to look like you’re trying, so you can’t be too formal, or too trendy. But at the same time, you do have to try—you can’t look sloppy. I’ve spent over an hour and tried on at least a dozen outfits, and I still haven’t chosen the right one. It’s been a while since I’ve been there, so I’m not sure exactly what the day will entail. What the day entails dictates a lot of how I dress. If I know I’m going to be busy, I want to make sure I’m more comfortable, with flats and pants that actually fit. If I won’t be there as long, or if I know I won’t be too busy, I can be more daring. Finally I decide on wide-leg trousers, a fitted sweater, and black kitten heals. No, it’s not the first day of high school after summer break. After three years of having a real job, it’s my first day back to work at Nordstrom.
We start out young, with no knowledge of anything, no sense that you are not in tune with the masses, and no regrets about the way things are or might have been. In elementary school, I dressed however I wanted, which was usually based on whatever I could find on my floor. My older sisters’ advice on matching and clashing didn’t register, and I considered it good if I just had on pants and a shirt. I sometimes wore mismatched shoes—out of necessity, due to my mother’s training method of picking up everything off the floor at the end of a day, locking it in a box in the closet, and making us pay a quarter to get anything back—and didn’t care a bit. But then middle school comes around, and your body starts to change, and your thoughts start to change, and suddenly you don't know who you are anymore. Everything is different. Everything is off. You're confused, scared, unsure, and there's this funny tingly sensation when you look at the boy across from you in math class and suddenly those romance novels your sister had don't seem so icky anymore. You take those sex ed classes—from the lesbian health teacher no less—and think that it will all get better one day. That eventually you'll get back to normal. So you drudge through, accept Aunt Flo when she comes, find a way to hide that boner when the teacher calls you to the front of the room to do the math problem on the board. You accept that fact that your friends are changing as rapidly as the hairs are growing in completely strange places. You shudder at the feel of your father touching you, the hugs seem just a little too long, the pats on the back just a little too smooth—not because of him, but because anything from a boy is just weird. But you look forward to the time when it will all be different, back to normal. To high school.
But then high school comes around and it's the same uncomfortableness, just different. It's the same awkward feelings, just different. The friends who were your friends in middle school, who are not the same ones as they were in elementary school, are no longer the same. You've diverged onto different paths—the jocks, the nerds, the preps, the hicks, the Mormons (if you live in Ontario), the Mountain kids (if you live in Sandy), the Mexicans, the theater, band, and choir geeks (who may or may not be a part of the same group). And even if you're at one of those progressive high schools, one of those ones where “everyone's friends with everyone” there's still a level of cool and not cool; the cliques are still there, they're just larger cliques. So you drudge through high school, thinking, things will get better when I get to college, when I'm surrounded by people who have the same interests as me, people who want to do the same things, who have the same goals, who feel the same things. But you leave the comfort of your small pond, dive into the big pool, and SPLASH, you find out it's still the same shit. And you think, things will be different when I'm out of college, when I have a career, when I'm doing what I really want to do, not just working at bar after restaurant after retail store, trying to make enough to support my drinking habit and pay for birth control and still make it to class on time. Things will change. But then you graduate, and you have to take the first job you get (student loans, you know). So you drudge through that, because, you know, it's just until something better comes along.
The thing is, it's always the same shit. For the rest of your life, it's going to be the same shit.
We start out young, with no knowledge of anything, no sense that you are not in tune with the masses, and no regrets about the way things are or might have been. In elementary school, I dressed however I wanted, which was usually based on whatever I could find on my floor. My older sisters’ advice on matching and clashing didn’t register, and I considered it good if I just had on pants and a shirt. I sometimes wore mismatched shoes—out of necessity, due to my mother’s training method of picking up everything off the floor at the end of a day, locking it in a box in the closet, and making us pay a quarter to get anything back—and didn’t care a bit. But then middle school comes around, and your body starts to change, and your thoughts start to change, and suddenly you don't know who you are anymore. Everything is different. Everything is off. You're confused, scared, unsure, and there's this funny tingly sensation when you look at the boy across from you in math class and suddenly those romance novels your sister had don't seem so icky anymore. You take those sex ed classes—from the lesbian health teacher no less—and think that it will all get better one day. That eventually you'll get back to normal. So you drudge through, accept Aunt Flo when she comes, find a way to hide that boner when the teacher calls you to the front of the room to do the math problem on the board. You accept that fact that your friends are changing as rapidly as the hairs are growing in completely strange places. You shudder at the feel of your father touching you, the hugs seem just a little too long, the pats on the back just a little too smooth—not because of him, but because anything from a boy is just weird. But you look forward to the time when it will all be different, back to normal. To high school.
But then high school comes around and it's the same uncomfortableness, just different. It's the same awkward feelings, just different. The friends who were your friends in middle school, who are not the same ones as they were in elementary school, are no longer the same. You've diverged onto different paths—the jocks, the nerds, the preps, the hicks, the Mormons (if you live in Ontario), the Mountain kids (if you live in Sandy), the Mexicans, the theater, band, and choir geeks (who may or may not be a part of the same group). And even if you're at one of those progressive high schools, one of those ones where “everyone's friends with everyone” there's still a level of cool and not cool; the cliques are still there, they're just larger cliques. So you drudge through high school, thinking, things will get better when I get to college, when I'm surrounded by people who have the same interests as me, people who want to do the same things, who have the same goals, who feel the same things. But you leave the comfort of your small pond, dive into the big pool, and SPLASH, you find out it's still the same shit. And you think, things will be different when I'm out of college, when I have a career, when I'm doing what I really want to do, not just working at bar after restaurant after retail store, trying to make enough to support my drinking habit and pay for birth control and still make it to class on time. Things will change. But then you graduate, and you have to take the first job you get (student loans, you know). So you drudge through that, because, you know, it's just until something better comes along.
The thing is, it's always the same shit. For the rest of your life, it's going to be the same shit.
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