Thoughts.

I've been doing perhaps an unecessary amount of reflecting lately, but I feel like I've gotten myself into such an unattractive rut that going back and finding the source of it all is the best option. Thank God for Livejournal, seriously, because I've realized that since I started it back in the summer of 2003, it's been probably the only place where I can get an accurate view of how my life was and how I was personally during any given period of time. So in my down-time, I've been flipping through the archives of my original Livejournal account and my current account, and it's been interesting just seeing where my head was at and how things were going.

Senior year in particular was such a bizarre time for me. I felt like when I was a junior everything was so new and exciting, like that was really my first year where I began to grow up. I had my first romance (that wasn't with a girl and could therefore constitute itself as legit), I had my license, my car, first job, and really was the first time I felt independent and could do (for the most part, parents' curfew notwithstanding) what I wanted. But by senior year a lot of that naive luster had rubbed off, and my outlook became more cynical. My peers were annoying, my mom was trying to make my life miserable, I was single for pretty much the entire year which translated into I'm unattractive and alone- just really petty, typical teenage angst bullshit that I allowed myself to get caught up in.

And of course, it's only when you've removed yourself from it and you look back that you realize just how dumb you were. I started so many stupid fights, allowed myself to get mixed up in the gossip and politics of being a vapid, stupid high school student living in Santa Clarita, when in reality I should have just not given a fuck, had fun, enjoyed my friends, and ridden it all out as happily as possible. Overall, I really did enjoy high school. I look back on it with fond memories, and all the drama just sort of becomes funny and adds to those memories.

In reality, I had a great group of friends in high school. They weren't shallow, they didn't stress over popularity or cliques, they understood me and could relate to me in my quest to just do what I want and not care about what others thought. And sure, we were all stupid and all had our dumb teenage moments (because we were teenagers, oddly enough), but when it boiled down to the core, we were all a pretty unique breed of teenager. We were sure of ourselves, for the most part, and we didn't need to subject ourselves to the trite shit that our classmates were doing. While you were hanging out at the mall buying up racks of Hollister or Abercrombie, we were using Brittany Oliphant's video camera to make movies where we just ran around screaming, tackling each other, and using five or six different accents in a five-minute span. While you were going off to Nike Base in your boyfriend's lifted truck smoking out or making out, we were having motorhome parties on the way to Disneyland. While you were having sleepovers and talking shit about this bitch or that bitch and then making Myspace posts about it, we were taking pictures of ourselves making ugly faces and making Myspace posts about THAT.



The point was, we knew how to have fun in our own way and didn't feel the need to do shit that would eventually turn us into the skanky soccer moms and wannabe-bro dads that populate this fucking town. I think, even in the face of all the drama that might have happened and the times when we DID act like typical teenagers, our experiences together and our ability to just let loose and be ourselves has made us richer and stronger than anyone else we went to high school with. I really want all my friends to know just how much of an impact they had on me, and how much they helped me get to where I am now, because I feel more assured of myself and more comfortable with who I am now than I ever have before. I owe a huge part of it to my friends, for encouraging me and dragging me out of my shell to become who I am today.