Due to this damned stomach flu, tonight was the only night I could go out with friends since I got home Tuesday evening. So my best friend Manda and I decided to get into comfy, comfy sweats, go suprise John, and go Wal-Mart stalking (side note: in Lawrence, we don't Wal-Mart stalk because there is actually stuff to DO in Lawrence...besides...stalk Wal-Mart. However, in Salina...there...is...not.) So I take a shower (much needed), throw on sweat pants, a t-shirt, Vans, and a jacket and drive up to Manda's to pick her up. I got there, greeted the parentals as usual ("hey mom, hey dad, happy new year, we'll be good, no drugs sex and rock and roll" etc), and we hopped, skipped, and booty bumped out the door. The thing I love about Amanda is that we could be away from each other for months, meet up and it be like we never even left. You know? Aubrey is the same way, but I really cherish those friends. We get in the car, total giggle bots, and drive down the hill to John's house. Knock on the door, he answers, and I scream/say "BAAAABBBYYY!!!" --- and that was the end of that. Hey family (mom, dad, Sam -- and, to our pleasant suprise, Grandma Shirley's dog Sasha), c'mon John get dressed, "I am dressed" says John, "oh" giggles says us, "eat cookies" says mom, we eat cookies. As I'm standing there in the kitchen, (as is the norm in the Neff household), I'm kind of looking at Amanda and John and thinking "Wow....I have amazing friends." John even postponed plans with his girlfriend to just hang out with me. So we drove, no where in particular, and ended up at Wal-Mart. Definetly a safe, warm place with toys and games galore we can screw up and try to get kicked out. Which is exactly what we did, failing miserably. We even opened a thing of Gack and still no one noticed. Dissappointing, for sure. One clerk HELPED us and WATCHED us mess with this skateboard type thingy....it was damn near ridiculous. John, being his pessimistic, tired self kept telling us we were going to kill ourselves, so I squished his face and told him not to be a grumpy pants, that if we kill ourselves he can pick up the pieces and tell us he told us so. That appeased him for a while, getting a one syllable John laugh. We made our way to the car stereos, the guns, and then eventually to our afore-mentioned bench where we kind of lingered, talking about life, school, high school (ew), and these very horridly dressed girls who kept walking by, as if to get John's attention. It was ridiculous. One in particular was obviously in denial about her size because every single article of clothing she had one was one or two sizes too SMALL. It was one of those situations where you know you shouldn't look, but you just can't help looking and you have to think about it and contemplate what made her make the decision to WEAR that out in public and made you wonder if she raided her little sister's closet. On top of it, she had platinum blonde hair (obviously dyed) with a terribly red fake tan. Hello! Like we're not going to know it's fake...it's January. Duh. I found myself thinking "Holy God. I hope I didn't look like THAT in high school." I know that in high school, my fashion sense was waaayyy lacking, due to the face that I could have cared less---but since then, I've kind of found my niche and realized that people aren't looking at whether you're matching or not, they're looking at whether you are confident in what you're wearing....that determines whether you can pull it off or not. My friend Marilyn is the prime example. I've seen that girl wear a black tutu-type skirt, black tights with a hole in the knee, brown knee-high suede boots, a grey sweater, and a red peacoat and look absolutely fabulous because you KNOW she's loving what she's wearing. Monica sometimes says "Mar looks like a hooker from the '80's...but she pulls it off." I told John this earlier -- when you get to college, you realize the things you thought mattered, don't. What you wear, what you eat, how you put your hair up --- no one gives a crap. There are more people walking around campus in mismatching sweats, tennis shoes, baseball caps, no make-up, hair on top of their head, with random colored gloves or scarves or jackets or whatnot than I've ever seen. In high school, it's all about a small waist, tight fitting clothes, low-rise jeans, cleavage, straight hair, and make-up that makes you look five years older. I wish people would get a clue and realize that no one will care in ten years if you owned a pair of Lucky jeans your sophmore year in high school...or whether you had a Blackberry or a Razor...or whether you had blonde highlights (because everyone else did), or if you had natural color....or if you wore red to prom...or whether you were captain of the football team or a benchpress....no one will care. Hell, hardly anyone cares now. Unless you get scholarship for sports, no one will tie anything you do to high school. Sure, the drama never ends, but....high school does. I'm not the same person I was. I'm not the loud, annoying, brash, mean, no-nonsense girl I was. Well....I'm still no-nonsense, but I grew up. Petty things....not important.
Hmm...I'm not really sure where I was going with this blog, but it might be the most honest one I've written yet.
Liss--love your reflections on life. Its amazing how much our perspective changes when we find ourselves in new places. Highschool is one of those weird times that when you are in it feels like it IS existence, it is grown up, it is all-consuming. And even someone from the outside saying, "this too will end" doesn't seem like a valid source. But once you emerge and move out to the next phase of life, it all falls into the perspective. Part of it comes from the incredibly vulnerable time that our teenage years find us in. I think our 20's are some of the most revealing times of self-discovery and adventure. I'm glad you've found freedom from the highschool mentality. It opens up worlds, for sure.
ReplyDelete