Emo T-Rex....(mostly rambling about high school)

About to go home in the morning, or rather, to my parents house. I haven’t lived in that town for six years but I still think of it as home, which is weird because from the age of like, ten the only thing I looked forward to was turning 18 and moving far, far away. That is exactly what I did and I would never move back but I am getting to like visiting it.

It wasn’t because of my parents that I disliked it. I mean, of course I went through the usual teenage phase of being totally and utterly mortified but every single thing that they did but for I actually have a better relationship with my parents than almost anyone else I know.

Back to my original point, it surprises me that I have gotten to the point in my life where visiting my hometown is actually exciting. I remember when I was in high school I’d throw tantrums, not just whining, not just complaining, but full out bawling, screaming teenage tantrums BEGGING my parents to send me to move or send me to a boarding school or let me live with a relative in a different town. To let me do anything that would make it so I didn’t have to go back to that school.

I can’t exactly remember what about it was so horrible. It wasn’t like I was teased or bullied, in fact even though I was never popular, I had a few very close friends, liked most of the people and there were only one or two people that I actively disliked. Just never really fit in. I somehow managed to get a reputation for being wild, which was weird because while I smoked cigarettes, besides the normal experimenting a few times, I didn’t really drink or do drugs. Nevertheless, there were a lot of people in school that thought I was a pretty big party animal.

My closest friend through school, we’ll call her T, who did even less "bad" things than me was also considered fairly wild. Which is pretty funny, because there were many, many times when we would get invited to a party or asked to go do something but instead would go to my dad’s house (now this is where you can tell I am insanely wild) and would spend the night…reading library books. Seriously, we’d get home from school, put on comfy pajama clothes, and talk and read in the living room until we felt like sleeping. If we got bored with that, she would play the Sims on my dad’s computer while I played the piano or watched TV. There were times when we would be at a party and pretend that we were going to another party and just go back to one of our houses, to read. I was like the opposite of every other teenager in the world, instead of lying to my parents saying I was going to sleep over at a friend’s so I could really go to a party, I lied to my friends so I could get out of the party so I could sleep over at T.’s to read books. FYI, I still talk to her about every other day and when we get together now, as adults, we usually do the exact same thing.

I think part of the reason people thought that I was sort of a bad apple was because I missed a lot of school. I am sure most people thought that I was skipping with my friends (which is something I did exactly three times in my life and got caught and in a ton of trouble every time). I did miss a lot of school, but it was usually because I was sick or hadn’t slept the night before. I have fibromyalgia but didn’t get diagnosed until I was 19, so it wasn’t until then that I realized my chronic mystery illnesses and insomnia (AKA going two or three days in a row without sleeping) had a medical reason. I used to get in trouble with teachers a lot for it too, especially one teacher who acted like me not being there held everyone else in the class back too. Though to be fair to her, the only thing I know how to say in French, which was the class she taught and I took it from 7th grade to junior year, is "I speak English", "I cannot speak French", and some random numbers, nouns and swear words.

That was a long rambling tangent, but back to the high school thing, it wasn’t just that I didn’t feel like I fit in at the school, I felt like I was a big weird-o compared to almost everyone else in town. I didn’t care about the football team, school spirit and gym class was the bane of my existence. I didn’t like to go four wheeling, snowmobile, ice fish, fish, hunt, shine for deer, play sports, drink alcohol, go to parties or go to school dances (never went to a prom, homecoming, or anything like that in my life, and even though multiple people told me I’d regret not going I never have).

So yeah, like a billion other people I didn’t really like my hometown or high school, but I am getting to the point where I can at least appreciate my hometown and get excited when I go and visit my family and the friends I have that still live there. But I’d NEVER move back, I need to live in an area that has a bookstore, mall, museums, and restaurants in easy access. From my dad’s house it is almost an hour long drive to even get to a Wal-Mart, so if you need anything you have to try and make it into town before like, 4 o’clock to see if it might be at the Piggly Wiggly otherwise you are out of luck. Speaking of being way out in the middle of nowhere, don’t expect another blog post for a few days. My dad’s house has no cell phone reception or Internet connection (‘cause apparently the house is located in 1992).

Side note, I am watching a documentary on birds (because I am really cool like that). Did you know that ostriches eat rocks with their food to grind up their food for them? Did you ever hear of a terror bird? It’s like a Baby t-rex and an emo combined. Also, I would really like a pet owl. They look neat. Ha, I just noticed that I wrote emo instead of emu but I am going to leave it because the visual that I get when I think about an emo t-rex is pretty amazing. Just picture them running around, wrist bands on their teeny, little arms and dyed purple, floppy hair over their big heads. On that note, good night.