my ENTIRE life, the football player and playing victim

There is nothing more humbling than reading poetry you wrote at 14. Trust me, I just found a notebook full of it. A notebook covered with angels, since that year also included my failed attempts at adopting my friends' enjoyment of both youth group and Jesus. It's the old "well, everyone else is doing it" teenage story. Except that being the super-focused judgy kid that I was, the drug- and drinking-related peer pressure was prefaced by the Jesus Is Awesome kind by a good five years. Yeah. There's a reason my parents weren't concerned with me not having a curfew.

Though if you believe the predictable rhyme schemes of 15 year-old Amy, there was clear cause for concern. Because for the nearly two years this notebook covers I was madly, totally, completely in love. Like "I will never forget you my ENTIRE life" in love. Writing poems with titles like "Shattered", "Letting Go", "Grieving" and "No More Words" (which may have been a bit premature- it's followed by at least 20 pages of more). I mean, I was in love with this guy people. And not the kind of shit girls write before they give it up to a guy, it's the kind of stuff that fuels the creation of suicide pacts. Maybe not the ones that get followed up on, more the kind that get talked about late at night during the recurring "Nobody understands us" commiseration, but still, intense.

So the weird thing is that I have no idea who these were written about. Or if they were even written about the same guy, or if the guy actually existed anywhere besides my hilarious early attempts at profound depth. Absolutely. No. Idea. I remember my high school crushes: the football player, the guy in Texas, the awkward but entertaining friend, the guy I ended up dating for a minute or so years later. And I hope, for both their sake and mine, that it was none of them. 

But my pride aside, I know it was probably about all of them. Or at least the idea of them, which likely came from my thoughts of myself at the time. I mean, I was a middle class white kid from a stable (if broken) home, who got straight-As and worked at Baskin Robbins... maybe I just needed something about my life to be a little fucked up. Needed something to blame my blossoming teenage (now "twenty-something") angst on. I needed adversity, to be the victim of something beyond my control. So I played at love like other teenagers play at rebellion or popularity. I guess I could've chosen worse.

It's weird thinking about how many things changed in the years that came after this notebook. The boys I really fell for, the heartbreaks I really went through and all of the stuff that happened in between. 

Then there was the realization that not every poem needs to rhyme. That may have been the biggest discovery of all.

Past selves, afternoon beers and epic failures.

I think I'm still holding myself up to the standards that my sixteen year-old self set. The self that didn't understand how awesome a beer on the front steps in the middle of the afternoon can really be, or the luxury of not needing to own a pair of heels at 27, and especially not the joy of letting work take only 40 hours of my thoughts a week. If that. She was awesome, and I owe her everything, but that girl was guided solely by the hopes of everyone else and the knowledge of her own potential. I may not have learned all that much since I figured out how to drive a car without injuring myself and others, but there is one thing that I have realized, if painfully gradually. Having potential is a broader and less important thing than everyone seems to think. The ability to be good at, or as or with something doesn't mean any of it's needed to be good at life. If it comes down to being really good at one thing and investing all of myself into being It at the expense of all the small joys and even epic failures that make life really Life, it just doesn't seem worth it. Focusing on a single promising ability limits the possibility of finding out about so many lesser ones. Ones that might not make me any money or gain me any notice but could potentially be exponentially more rewarding. 

There is a part of me that still chides myself for not going to law school or pursuing a career in government. But she barely knows how to drive, and I'm hoping that if I show her all of the awesomeness that is out there to see and experience without heels and 70 hour work weeks and a rush to go and get and be, she'll eventually come around. 

She's a pretty smart girl.