VOX: The Voice of Our Generation

It wasn’t just that day, though. It was my entire freshman year. My family had just relocated for the 12th time, and I pushed away everyone I met in my new city out of sheer disgust for the move. My resentment colored every aspect of the change. Months would pass before I realized my bad attitude was a self-fulfilling prophecy. “You were walking out of 2nd period,” the friendly stranger continued.

Realizing the unknown sender was a student from my questionable new high school where I was convinced I hated everyone, I exploded.

“OMG WHY DO YOU KNOW MY SCHEDULE?” I demanded, ensuring that this person would never contact me ever again.

Grumpiness
During the self-enforced social dormancy that was freshman year, my only friends were other black-wearing, disgruntled freshmen, and my only activities were moping and writing badly generic poetry about how misunderstood I was. I surrounded myself with masochistic reminders of what I considered a sick violation of justice—having to move the summer before high school. Essentially, I was a walking entity of teen angst: I resented my parents, ignored my teachers and scorned my peers. The dramatic demonstration of my discontent never convinced my parents to move back, but I continued to stage my fruitless protest, hoping it would eventually yield to results.

I finally realized that my behavior was not so much expressive as self-destructive when I received my advisor reports at the end of the term. Most of the hand-written comments had nothing to do with my academics; instead, they consisted of remarks like: “Catherine looks unhappy.” “Catherine never speaks in class.” Even “Catherine should smile sometimes.”

No sh**, I was unhappy. As I tossed my advisor report into the trash, I thought of how my mom would react. She’d say the same thing she says to every microscopic detail that has ever gone remotely astray in my life: “Wah wah wah, you’re not going to get into college.” Then my derision was replaced with panic. In all seriousness, what kind of school would I apply to with teacher recommendations that said I should smile more often?

Self-Evaluation
So, I decided to stage my own evolution. That weekend, instead of nagging my dad to drive me 26 miles back to our old city so I could torture myself trying to catch up with old friends, I grabbed a fellow disgruntled peer and actually ventured out into a social setting: a mall. We clambered around, out-of-place, and received surprised waves from classmates until we finally decided on taking refuge in a movie theatre. This didn’t prove to be the escape I wanted, though. A few minutes into the flick, a timid, animated character with long black hair and side-swept bangs covering one eye appeared on screen, creeping out of a hiding spot from which she was spying on other students at her school.
“HEY, LOOK, IT’S YOU!” my shameless friend shouted out in the middle of the theater, excited by this similarity, spilling some popcorn.

So, it was official. That’s how people saw me. As a reclusive girl with hair in her face, spying on other people from behind trash cans. Awesome.

Letting go of my self-righteousness was draining. It wasn’t until the end of the year that I could acknowledge my new school as even remotely decent. Once I gave up trying to find fault with it though, it was much easier to meet people I liked, even though they’d been there all along. Sophomore year was so much more enjoyable because I went into it with an open mind instead of a grudge. It was hard for me to admit that most of the frustrations I faced freshman year were a direct result of my bad attitude, but I couldn’t deny that as my outlook improved, so did the situation itself.

Regression
Convinced that I had put this maladapted, angst-filled period of my life behind me, it was almost insufferably embarrassing my junior year to be revisited by an awkward social maneuver I had made freshman year and long since forgotten. It happened on the last period of the first day of school. I entered the psychology classroom, dropped my books on the table, sat down, and then suddenly, much too late, realized with panic that the student to my right was the unknown sender from freshman year, with whom I had successfully avoided any interaction until this point. I was so proud of myself for going the entire day without being awkward. And then I found myself in close proximity with this boy I had once aggressively accused of being a psychotic stalker.

Luckily, the tension didn’t last long. My shameless friend from the movie loudly addressed the issue for me by asking, “Didn’t you guys used to hate each other?” For the rest of the period, Unknown Sender and Shameless Friend enthusiastically collaborated to compile an anthology of embarrassing stories about my social ineptitude freshman year. Over a couple weeks, this became a running joke between us, and my past incompetence became less of something I tried to cover up and more of something I voluntarily offered up to make fun of.

Actualization
I realize now that I wasted a lot of time freshman year wallowing in self-pity.
I was so preoccupied fantasizing about the amazing high school experience I would have had if we’d never moved that I nearly missed out on the incredible moments I was having.
Whenever I wonder out loud why I spent so much energy perpetuating my own teenaged torment, Shameless Friend responds, “Probably because you were full of angst.” And it’s true. I didn’t even try to make the best of my situation. Instead, I let myself become consumed with the negativity, feelings that were not even salient to be identified as anything but teen angst.

Catherine is a senior at Paideia.