I was at a Game Night this evening with a group of people who are new to us. The women in the group were chatting in the kitchen about things and people I didn’t know yet. This teenaged girl and I were left sitting at the bar of the kitchen talking to each other. On the way home I mused about how uncomfortable teenagers made me in the past. Then I would have been looking for an exit or an adult to rescue me. Since I have a teenager myself now, sometimes it feels more natural than talking to the adults.
She said, “Sometimes when I’m listening to my music on the bus, I just start singing and I don’t care who hears me. It’s so fun,” she said.
I remembered when I was on the bus going to a game with Volleyball and somehow someone got a hold of a tape I had made of myself singing along with Mariah Carey. This mortified me! People actually heard my voice and I was being SUCH A NERD…OMG. Someone just casually said to me, “that’s pretty good”. There I sat, surprised that I wasn’t getting a hard shaming for allowing someone to see me vulnerable.
She said she read at a 12th grade level when she was in elementary school. I said “Me too!” I told her about that book I read, Night of the Twisters, that scared the bejeezus out of me. She talked her “Chronicles of Narnia” and I thought how I should have read that, but I thought I was too cool to read books a lot by the time I was her age.
She said she likes Christian Rock Music and showed me some of her stuff. I said, “I like music, too!” Though I thought Christian Music wasn’t cool when I was her age. The only band I could offer up was Big Daddy Weave, though. She started giggling, “they’re so old!” I laughed
She told me stories about her dog and I told her stories about my dogs. The kids liked the stories I told them about my two mutts and I enjoyed hearing their stories too.
As I was sitting there listening to her, I was impressed how smart she is. Also amazed that I felt like I was looking at myself when I was younger, inside, but way more confident and doing what she should be doing for a girl her age. I thought my time was better spent drinking and having fun with my friends. “She is going to go so far,” I thought. She is really intelligent and well versed in literature, that’s for sure. She is at Game Night with her parents reading C.S. Elliot and I, I was too cool for that.
When I got home I sat here reflecting on our conversation. It was as if I was just sitting there, as a kid myself, just having a conversation with a new friend. We’re just hanging and chatting and being like, “me too!” She is so confident in herself, she is an inspiration.
We sat side by side and she said, “I pick at my fingers and my nails.” I said, “me too!” Though she wasn’t ashamed at all and I have been struggling with that for years. Thinking about that made me cry a bit because it brings me such agony, knowing I am doing it but not being able to stop myself. Knowing there is a girl out there who picks her nails and isn’t ashamed of it makes me feel better about my affliction.
Me too! (It’s important to know you’re not alone)
Contesting Normal 