I gotta stop pretending who we are

Last night we watched "Speak" which was an interesting movie based on the book of the same name. You can look up the details, but, briefly, it's a story of a girl who is date-raped shortly before starting high school and how she deals (or doesn't) with it. What it stirred in me actually surprised me.

Now, before you worry, nothing like date-rape happened to me. I had a fairly ordinary high school experience, no major traumas there. Last night, I dreamt about high school. I dreamt about being a freshman again. It was one of those dreams that felt so real you wake up confused for a moment, wondering whether you are in "real life" now, or did you just wake up from the real real life. In my dream, I was a freshman again, walking through the halls, watching my fellow students. Those feelings from back then, they were in that dream, as real as they were back then. The upper classmen seemed so much older than me, so mature, so together. I was still a kid, trying to figure things out. They wore their make-up with confidence, they dressed liked they knew what they were doing, not like their moms had picked their clothes. I know now that this wasn't the case, that they probably weren't as together as they looked to me, but back then, I was in awe of them. They were like rockstars to me. They were more important than celebrities. They had their friends, their cliques, their private jokes. I wondered if I'd ever be like that.

Last night, I was there again. It wasn't any specific incident or real memory, but the feel of that first year of high school, it was there, so pure and real. I felt that electric buzz of tension running through me, a constant, like a buzzing you hardly notice until it stops and you notice the quiet, the void it's left. this tension wasn't a bad thing, but it wasn't exactly pleasant. I suppose back then I thought of it as excitement, but the reality was I was afraid. I was afraid that I would be found out. I was trying to reinvent myself,  I was trying to grow up, most of all, I was trying to shred what I was when I was in seventh grade, and I was afraid that someone would see the truth. That someone would pull me back.

I tell myself we all felt that way, but that can't be true. There had to be some who just knew, who were the real cool kids. The kids who had figured out who they were and where they wanted to be and just accepted it. And I got there, on some level. Yeah, I still get those moments where I'm afraid of being exposed, but don't we all? It's just no longer always there. It's just moments, and I can handle those. And I'm glad I'm awake.