The year is 1995. It has been one year after Kurt Cobain's death. Alternative and Ska music are still taken seriously and Alanis Morisette's album, Jagged Little Pill, had been released. I'll never forget the image of Alanis falling apart in the desert landscape. How perfect? To feel so utterly bruised and alone in a desert of all places. I won't go into the play on words/feelings between desert and deserted. I just remember how strangely I was drawn to the video. How I wanted to make like Mike Teavee from Willy Wonka and magically enter the screen.
I was and still am a child of the 90s. I don't think I'll ever be able to cure my desire to time-travel back then. To the time before texting, before blogging, before technology consumed our lives. I can visually remember it but all of its other senses seem somewhere else. But I yearn for it to this day- hoping that if I can recapture who I was then, I'll figure out the secret to life or something- anything!
Now imagine a little girl with long, naturally beautiful auburn hair, spinning. Spinning round and round, over and over in the yard of the trailer where her family lives. I had just written a song (a song I remember to this day) called, "Twisted." I was Shirley Manson. I was bewitching the world with my voice and wildly spinning and floating in a tornado of love and hate and too many other fucked up things a girl that age should have had no concept of, but felt regardless.
I was a very deep-thinking child. I read essays and rented National Geographic films from the library. I was an old soul even then. I saw people and the world for what they were and I wanted to change it. I had strong senses and emotions. I had vision. My imagination was at its strongest then because it was completely organic and I believed in possibilities.
I had few friends and the girls I did hang out with were always out of my league in some way. Either they were too proper or too rowdy for me- there was never a middle ground. I was either the bad kid from the trailer park or, the kid with parents who were still married and who didn't really drink or smoke.
My parents worked a lot (God bless them for it) and my siblings were older. So basically I was alone. So I wrote. I wrote songs. I wrote stories. I wrote imaginary friends. According to the life I lived on the construction and lined sheets of paper, I had two best friends and boys liked me. In fact, I had kissed one. He was really cute. I can still envision him too! At one point, I had become so absorbed that I actually began to believe in my stories. It seemed the world in my head was a much better place than the world I tangibly lived in. I knew it could be better and believed one day it would be.
Fast-forward a few years... I'm in the eighth-grade and our assignment is to write a letter to ourselves. The teacher will then send it to us when we're seniors in high school so we can look back on our change. I think this is pretty cool and look forward to time-traveling back to this day, when I'm 18, to tell my eighth-grade self, it's so much better now.
Fast-forward a few years more... Mail is waiting for me. It's a letter to me c/o my father (I must've been mad at my mom then to not put her down). I begin to read and after some small talk with myself it reads:
"So, how is that really sweet and sexy guy you're seeing? He's a real sweetie! I hope your job is going good. Do you have that hummer still? Is senior year what everyone said it would be?... Did you graduate with a 4.0??? Have you reached that point with a guy yet? Was is as great as you pictured it to be? Are you in love yet? Is it that great like roses and daisys? Are you planning on going to college in Cali? I hope so! That'd be really cool! Have you gone to Europe yet? Skydiving? That's neat that you want to! Have you been partying a lot lately? That's cool, but don't do anything stupid!... Are you and Kelly still B.F.F? I hope so, she is super sweet and fun! Did you ever lose weight? LOL. Are you a size 5 yet? I hope you tried and didn't give up and kill yourself in the end! Does your mom still treat you like a baby and do you not have any space? LOL. Let's hope not! Well I g2g! Love ya! Bye, good luck! Helena"
Rewind a couple years, I'm a cynical 16 yr.old in art class. I no longer talk in exclamations. I'm talking about how I'm going to sell my '95 Jimmy and use all my money to get an old '67 Mustang and ride out to California to go to art school when I graduate. I have gotten to that point with a guy (sorry mom) and it was nothing I thought it'd be and I felt like shit afterwards. I have not been in love yet but have still managed to get my heartbroken a few dozen times. I'm struggling to keep my weight under 130lbs and it gets harder and harder every day. I'm still writing but my work has gotten more political, as well as sexual. Girls in my writing class tell me I write like Carrie Bradshaw. My teacher tells me she sees me heading to the East Coast one day to fulfill my dreams as a writer. I shrug knowing Cali is the place for me. Most girls hate me because, as my dad says, "they feel threatened by your ability to hold your own, especially around men." Perhaps this is all because I've grown into my skin and I've had to thicken it along the way. I hate Michigan at this point. I'm usually angry at my mother for no reasonable reason other than I hate myself for who I've become and decide to blame her. I drink a lot. I smoke cigarettes. And there's usually a rumor going around that I either had an orgy over the weekend, am pregnant, or slept with someone's boyfriend. High school sucks, girls suck, boys are shit, and all I wanna do is be 18 and leave this fucking place.
Now fast-forward to a couple days ago when I'm sitting, crying, praying to God to help me get my shit together. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I'm reviewing it and it's not anything I thought it'd be. I think of where I thought I'd be at this age: graduated with a steady, creative job; living in the mountains with the amazing man I'm in love with, possibly talking marriage and children; and spending as much time as I possibly can with my family. Oh and, I'd have a killer body.
Now let's open the door to reality: I'm unemployed. I've been in love 3 times- all 3 times with drunks and addicts. One of which I'm still weening myself off of. I didn't go to college in California but I did graduate from a well-renowned school in Michigan where I was miserable. I did not graduate with a 4.0 nor have I been to Europe. I want to tell my eighth-grade self, it's not better now, quit listening to everyone else, and follow your dreams. Go! Now! Do it before the voices in your head begin to drown-out your own.
Oh and, I'm considered overweight for my height and age.
So... What does all of this have to do with anything? In trying to figure out what I'm doing with my life I had to dig deeper into the past- not to live there, but to visualize my growth and check what I could keep and what could be thrown out. And despite everything, I wouldn't take any of it back. The darkness (aka "shit") I've been through has only made the light in me grow brighter and has made me who I am today. The part in the letter to myself where I ask if I killed myself was very real. There were hundreds of times I considered it but for some reason I never did nor could.
Instead, I wrote, prayed, and learned to laugh at myself.
Nowadays, friends would probably describe me as one of the happiest, most bubbly people they know. People are surprised to hear that when I was young I was a nervous recluse, considering my ability for TMI and doing "the worm" at bars when I've had too much to drink.
But I miss that girl. I miss the dreams, the drive, and the belief I could do anything. I have yet to find her and I look for her in hopes that she will lead me to where I need to be and perhaps help me answer the question:What am I doing with my life?
I realized there needs to be a Part 3. I hope you'll reminisce with me again as I continue my journey and try to figure out the meaning to life, why boloney tastes so good, and other questions on my mind.
Until next time, thanks for cringing with me!
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