As a teenager I was deeply unappealing.
My tiny frame, which spent the better part of my junior high and high school years in a constant tug of war with puberty, was filled to the pimply brim with anger and bitterness towards most living, breathing, unassuming human beings who dared look at me, completely ignore me, or simply exist within twenty feet of me. My tall but lanky body didn't fit into clothes correctly so my pants were constantly sliding off of me while still being a full six inches too short (I showed more ankle than a 19th century whore), while my shirts, which were all hand-me-downs anyway- either from a family friend who was 3 years older and a good foot taller than me, my mother, or, yes, even my brother- just hung there. That's the only way to describe it; they just hung. Sadly. Like these shirts were more depressed than the average second-hand garment.
I also had this thing about my hair. I pulled it back so tightly that it looked like I was bald- although this was helped greatly by my large forehead (thanks for the DNA, Dad!). If there was one little micro-bump in my hair, I covered it up with a clip. Now, if you remember the late '90s - early '00s, you'll recall a little gem of fashion culture known as the butterfly clip. Some were small clasps with a delicate fabric butterfly glued to the end. Others were giant jumper cables with a mutant sized 3-D butterfly made out of beads and glitter and estrogen.
And they had spring loaded wings so they literally flapped their wings with each self-loathing step we, ok I
, took. While most girls adorned their heads with one simple butterfly clip for decoration, I loaded my skull with 10-15 of these majestic little fuckers, to the point where you couldn't even see a solid square inch of my hair. Which, albeit, was probably for the best because I'm going to throw myself under the bus here and admit that I probably didn't wash my hair as often as I should have. I do now, just to be clear. But back then? Eeehhhh, not so much. Granted, people tried to help me. I had one friend who, on the RARE occasion that I wore my hair down to school, would come up to me and say, "Alexis! You look so pretty with your hair down! You should wear it like that more often! Seriously...wear your hair down. I'm begging you. We all are. Here's the signed petition we passed around."
Let's not forget the astronomical amount of awkward that I possessed. And my shyness only made it worse. If someone came up and asked me a question, I'm pretty sure my eyes just started rolling around in my head as a steady stream of drool began pouring out of my mouth while I frantically searched for the ability to speak. But I can never really be sure. I think I blacked out whenever someone acknowledged my existence.
So yes, from the ages of 12 to, let's say somewhere between 15 and 17, I was a physical, social, and emotional jigsaw puzzle with all the corner pieces missing.
This was all very confusing to me because I'm fairly certain that I was a delightful child. I went from being a round little melon of a baby to a sass-charged youngster who could hang with the boys and had a thick, syrupy Northeast Philly accent that made me seem much tougher than I actually was. Unfortunately, I made a conscious effort to get rid of my apparent accent (which I honestly was not even aware I had) in college when a friend of mine FLIPPED over the way I said "phone" when his cell started ringing one day while he was hanging out in my dorm room.
"
What did you just say???" he gasped as I oh-so-nicely pointed out to him that he was receiving a call.
"I said your phone's ringing..." I answered, confused. Had I slipped into another language during our conversation? Did those six years of Spanish and one semester of college Italian really pay off?
Was I trilingual and I didn't even realize it?!
"Say 'phone' again," my friend begged, leaning forward with a gleam in his eyes that I thought was saved for five-year-olds on Christmas morning or crack addicts who just found twenty bucks on the street after running out of, well, crack. "Just say it one more time. Say 'phone'."
"Phooone?" I said, drawing out the word with utter uncertainty as to what was happening.
"Oh my god you say it so weird!!!" My friend threw is head back and laughed, then straightened back up and looked me in the face again. "Say other words," he pleaded. "Say 'water'! Bagel! Boat! Towel! OH MY GOD SAY TOWEL!!!"
And that was the day I say goodbye to my accent. It still comes back every once in awhile, if I'm angry or talking really fast, or just kind of shooting the shit without thinking. A year after I finished college, I was picking up a friend so we could go see our old a cappella group perform. On the car ride to the concert, she asked me something and I responded with "Yeah". Apparently I had temporarily slipped back into the Northeast when I said this, because my friend paused and then asked,
"Where did
that come from?"
"Where did what come from?" I asked back.
"That 'yeah'. Where did that accent come from?"
The truth is, I miss my accent and I wish I had just stuck it to all those Allentownies and stayed true to my vernacular. But let's not waste the moral of the story on this silly little tangent.
I just think it's interesting how people change. Right now I'm dating a guy who I went to junior high and high school with. We grew up in the same town our whole lives, went to school together for 6 years, and still had no idea that the other person existed until our senior year when we sat at the same lunch table together. And that was only because he was dating a girl that I ate with.
Now, you would think that after being 3 feet away from each other every day for an entire year, he and I would know something about each other, maybe have had a few casual conversations, at the
very least we must have said hello to each other. Wrong. Not once. I don't think we ever even made eye contact. In fact, HE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW MY NAME. All he knew me as was the skinny, quiet, bitchy (please refer back to my Bitch Face blog for further explanation) nerd who apparently had brown hair, was very short, and wore the same hoodie every day. Meanwhile, I have blonde hair, am actually slightly taller than the average girl, and didn't even own a hoodie until the very end of senior year. The kicker is though, he didn't have me confused with someone else. That's literally just how little we cared about the other person's existence. To me, he was my lunch friend's boyfriend, who always wore black and thought he was cooler than everyone else and who I actually knew a little too much about thanks to girl talk. And he and his girlfriend were always fighting. Or making out. Sometimes both simultaneously. So yeah, he just seemed like a barrel full of fucking monkeys.
After high school, I forgot he was even a person on this planet until one day about two years ago when I saw him at Wing Night. Wing Night is every Monday at one of the local dive bars, and on this magical night, wings are just 25 cents each. The thing is though, I would pay 25 DOLLARS for these wings. Taking a bite of them is like having heaven take a vacation in your mouth while Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers waltz across your taste buds.
My friend Cristin and I began going to Wing Night every week around the time that my last relationship ended. Weekly doses of alcohol and drunk men hitting on me really helped me pull through that difficult time. Also, Cristin and I befriended the waitress who worked on Monday nights, so the whole thing became a bit of a ritual. As the weeks rolled on, I realized that every week I would see Lunch Table Kid walk in with this other kid that I also recognized from high school. Cristin and I sat at the same table most of the time, so every week these two guys would walk by and sometimes I would look at them and sometimes I wouldn't. And by 'look' I don't mean wink and giggle and twirl my hair, I mean 'Oh look, I attended my place of education with those two members of the opposite sex, one of whom was and still may be courting a maiden I once consumed a midday meal with'.
So basically, six or so years after spending every day at the same lunch table together, this kid and I were now spending every Monday night in the same bar. Still not talking.
This continued over the course of a year and a half/ two years. Then, this past January, I was at Wing Night with another girlfriend of mine. We were sitting at the usual table, and again these two guys walked in, and actually sat right behind us. Lunch Table Kid and I were back to back, literally inches apart. Next thing I know, my friend goes to the bathroom and on her way back catches the eye of Lunch Kid's friend. They start talking, a week later my friend and I are at another bar and she calls and invites him to join us. He says he's going to bring a friend. In my head I think, "Please let it not be Lunch Table Kid. He sucks."
Thirty minutes later, Other Kid walks into the bar, followed by Lunch Table Kid.
"Balls." I say to myself.
Thirty minutes after
that, Lunch Table Kid and I are immersed in conversation, cracking each other up, and I come to realize that he in fact does not suck at all. Actually, he was turning out to be one of the most enjoyable people I had met in awhile. I then took a quick inventory of the thoughts going through my head, which appeared in the following sequence:
* Hey, he's nice and easy to talk to.
* Wow, we have a lot in common.
* He thinks I'm hilarious! And why wouldn't he? I'm a hoot!
* These beers are delicious and I'm fairly certain I don't want to stop talking to this kid anytime soon.
* Do I like this kid?
* Do I want to KISS
this kid?
* HOLY CRAP I WANT TO TOUCH TONGUES WITH LUNCH TABLE KID.
That night we had our first kiss and almost five months later he and I are all relationshipped-up with each other. And you know what? We were totally wrong about the other person in high school. In every possible way. Well, I was quiet and he did wear a lot of black, but other than that it turned out to be a classic case of Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover. Granted, people change over a span of eight years, but you understand what I'm getting at. I guess what I'm saying is that it's funny how things work out and who you end up with once you start to further mold into the person you're meant to be. That, plus it's going to be a very interesting 10 year high school reunion :)
