Young Desperado, who will be your guide?

Have you ever listened to a podcast called Mortified? The premise is this: a middle aged adult on stage reading from his or her high school diary or poetry collection. It's inspirational, it makes me feel better about my own high school diaries, which I recently unpacked while setting up my new office.  While I don't expect to do a reading on Mortified, I have threatened to read from one of these old diaries, circa 1996,  at an open mic night. I've even gone so far as to visualize it: I'd walk on stage wearing glasses with thick tortoise shell frames and a loosely tied scarf like all female authors seem to do on TV. Once up there I'd shuffle through a stack of bound books, flipping pages wildly until I found just the right entry. Then I'd hold it into the light and the crowd would wait in earnest to hear something brilliant. Then, I'd begin:

                                "He was in Third grade when I was in Kindergarten. I want to marry him. 

                                 Today I was walking down the hall and Ang goes 'Jen' real quiet and I knew she 

                                  saw him somewhere. I looked all over, then I saw this really attractive blur

                                 out of the corner of my eye and he was right beside me! In class today I looked

                                 at him 46 times, and twice he was looking at me!"

   

That was a slice of life from 15 year old me, but as I got older things got a bit more cryptic. Though it would be over a decade before I knew the meaning of the word existential, I was dabbling in my first crisis of the sort. Here's a taste of poetry, circa 1999:

                                 "I twist and cry for you and hope that it will sound like poetry, 

                                  But you couldn't reach deep enough to touch the poet inside of me.

                                  I am desperation, 

                                  I am a river in the wastelands

                                  Where all the pawns and players are swallowed in the sand. 

                                  A hallow heartbeat I can't feel, 

                                  Most gentle hands, made of steel,

                                  Let's pretend for a while that this is real."

Oh, happy day! But I really shouldn't be too hard on lil 17 year old me because I feel like I had enough on my plate back then. It's just that now when I read those old journals I think How very sad and dramatic I was. Why did I make things so hard for myself? Well, back then teachers and parents would ask me the same types of questions, such as: 

"Why don't you wear more dresses?" 

        "Why don't you use your talent to write something nice?" 

                  "Smile more!"

Now, to be quite honest, I fear I'm becoming the same type of adult as I glare at a group of loitering teenagers and mumble "pull up your damn pants, boy", or roll my eyes at the too loud conversations of girls in coffee shops. Yet, I don't want to have a hand in curbing anyone away from their own truth when growing up. When I was young I wanted a guide, not someone to tell me what the easiest road to adulthood was, but someone who listened to me and accepted me, no matter how bad my poetry was, or how many rips I had in my jeans. I wanted them to meet me on my level, because I couldn't go to theirs without changing. 

In the late 90's, I felt like very few of us had a relationship like that, but we grew up regardless, and I for one have continued on the path away from that time and place for almost 20 years now. 

Up until the last few years I relished putting space between myself and my childhood. Each year I was more grounded and authentic, better, wiser, kinder and more intriguing. Everything that's behind me is like a book that's been read, I know how those stories end. But though it once seemed I was being ushered through life by a hurricane wind, it is now a soft breeze that suggests my path, and it gives me time to look back. I find that although I do know those stories behind me, I'm different now, and I would tell the stories differently.  For example, as a teenager I would say weird and classless things when I was around adults. I would make crass jokes or talk about things that I knew made them uncomfortable. At first glance I think to myself: "Ugh. How embarrassing. What a little shit I was!" But at second glance I realize I wanted their attention, moreover, their approval. My method was 100% unsuccessful. I have no idea why I thought it would work. Had I a guide, or a mentor I could have learned the error of my ways instead of struggling on for a couple more years before understanding the truth to the old adage "you catch more bees with honey than vinegar."

Well, there's this pay it forward philosophy that every one has heard of, especially since the 2000 film of the same name staring the perverted Kevin Spacey. It's a good idea: when something good happens to you, you do something good for someone else. Well, nowadays the question that I ask myself most often is: am I doing more than just making myself comfortable in the world? Sometimes the answer is no, end of discussion, but generally I quiet this voice by giving $50 to the local humane society or taking in a stray cat. Then I can say "Hush, you! I'm making the world a better place!" And yes, for those animals the world is a better place, but will I ever be ready to open my generosity to the realm of human beings? I'm gonna gamble and say yes. But will I ever be able to come full circle from my tortured teenage diaries and do something like volunteer to be a mentor? I don't know. That's trickier. I mean, I have next to no interaction with children or teens, and I have no idea what it's like to be a parent. I'm told it's different from having a dog or an unemployed boyfriend (not my current boyfriend), but I also think it might be kind of important to have intergenerational relationships at some point, you know, cause we all probably have different versions of the same story, and I don't want to be the crotchety old woman who calls the cops whenever she sees more than 2 teenagers outside together. I guess I'll do my usual and wait for the question to come back, then I'll decide spontaneously. In the mean time I have plenty of reading material to keep me occupied.