A friend of mine texted me two pictures the other day. They were Homecoming pictures from our Senior Year of High School. Remember high school? I hated high school. Sure, it had it’s high points, and my body was amazing -my metabolism was impeccable. But even that wasn’t enough to make it the “best” four years of my life. I love the people I grew up and graduated with, but MAN. I’m glad we’re onto other things now, even if it means an extra 30 pounds and slower metabolism… it’s a fair trade.
There was some kind of rule, if I remember right (and I could be 100% wrong because I really never paid attention to these kinds of rules) that once someone had been elected to Homecoming Court, they couldn’t be nominated again. From where I sat in the band section of the bleachers, I always watched my glamorous peers take the half-time walk out onto the track and receive their honors. I accepted the reality that I’d never take The Walk, and it didn’t really bother me. I was awkward, mismatched, loud, and seriously lacking in everything the girls who take The Walk had in spades -namely athleticism. Did I hate myself for everything that I was and wasn’t? Well, of course. I mean, I was in HIGH SCHOOL after all. I fairly died of happiness when a member of the varsity basketball team complimented my CK shirt that I had bought with specific high hopes that one of them MIGHT notice it. And of course I fairly died of humiliation when my loudness or awkwardness got the better of me and one of the varsity girls pointed it out… not so sweetly. A person can only hinge their happiness on someone else for so long, you know, before they start to lose themselves completely.
The facts that I’m loud and awkward and mismatched… hate or love them as I might… are some of my mainstay character traits. They DEFINE me, and I spent two years of my high school career trying to blot them out. You can imagine the state of my emotional health at the end of those two years. I hit a sort of rock bottom. It seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t be someone else. I was completely devastated (oh, I’m laughing as I type that). I finally accepted the fact that CK and I just couldn’t work together anymore. Reason being: I always bought my own school clothes, and when I had to pay $30 a shirt… I wasn’t able to buy much more than that, especially since my lovely long legs required at least $50 for one pair of jeans. They don’t sell my size at Target.
And somewhere around Rock Bottom, I gave up whole-heartedly on the mall. I went shopping where I knew I could make money stretch the farthest: a second-hand store. THERE, readers, my life changed. It was love at first shop, and I filled my cart with zany mismatched clothes that just screamed at me from the racks. I giggled at the quirky trinkets, and I couldn’t get enough of the shoe department. I started buying things that called out to ME and not the varsity team (genius, right?) and in so doing found myself decked from shoe to hair in absolute mayhem. My backpack was Pepto-pink, and when it tore I hand-stitched it with green thread. When that didn’t hold, I used duct-tape.
My shoes were red.
My scarf was construction orange.
I had a bird I liked to hold.
Okay, that last part isn’t true. It just sounded like it needed to be there. When I got bored of my closet (I still don’t know how I could have gotten BORED in my closet), I snuck into my parent’s closet. Those blessed people had saved the clothes they’d worn when they were first married. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANT?! My Dad is a cowboy -a real cowboy -and at my fingers were some real out-of-print (so to speak) Wrangler shirts. Those were my favorites. Once I embraced my mismatchedness, I moved onto loving other parts of me… by the time my Senior Year rolled around, I was one happy cookie -possibly because I knew the end was nigh. I had eliminated activities that brought me down (Stake Dances, sadly) and increased activities that brought me up (involving my friends in creative crap, whether it was screen writing, playing dress up, or writing songs about x-boyfriends).
And then something funny happened.
I took The Walk with two of my closest friends. We joked that because all the good people had already been nominated in past years (thus eliminating them from the running) we were all that was left. Though I will say that there never was a more deserving Homecoming Queen than my Tia -and everyone that knows her would agree. She’s universally adored. We’ve been best friends since my mom had me. Tia was already a month and half old. We traversed life together until my husband ripped us apart. But living as roommates in college was a real life Dream Come True. Didn’t you always secretly wish you could live with your best girl friend? Best. Year. Ever.
And here she is with Me and Erin. I had to cover up my bra… it was blindingly obvious -how embarrassing. Also: I bought my dress at a store full of formal outfits that had mistakes. The Ross of the Prom, so to speak. My entire outfit cost me $15. This was taken not long after the movie Miss Congeniality was released, and I think we spent most of our time wearing our crowns and saying, “World Peace!”
And you know something? When I look at this picture, I see three beautiful girls. When I was in high school, I didn’t see any beauty in me at all. Really, I didn’t. I used to stare into the mirror and WILL beauty to come and erase all of my acne, but it never did. Nine years later, the blinders are off. I was beautiful. Nine years later, the blinders have just been repositioned. There’s nothing like pregnancy to make a girl feel absolutely abhorring. This pregnancy has brought BACK the acne I thought I had long bid farewell to. Ah, well. That’s life and how we grow it, right? Anyway:
Tia had a Queen Staff that we all just loved. Never before had a Homecoming Queen been given a STAFF. It was truly THE item.
I showed the pictures to my husband when he came home from work, and instead of laughing me hugged me tight and told me I was beautiful.
Oh, husbands. Their blinders are always perfectly positioned, and how wonderful for us.
I’m sure in nine years when I’m 36 (WHAT?!) I’ll look back at my pregnant belly and think, “What was my problem? I was beautiful.”
And when I talk about beauty, I hope you won’t misunderstand and think that I’m stroking my vanity… I’m not referring to outward beauty in the least. I just wish I could have seen the goodness I had as a high school kid. I didn’t see it -not at all.
The curse of not seeing my own goodness seems to be a lingering one -one I think we all suffer from.
So today I challenge myself and I challenge you to see yourself today as if it’s 2021 -nine years in the future. Perhaps from there, your present state will seem more advantageous.
And for heaven’s sake -move those blinders!
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