Terrible Teens

Is there anyone out there who can think about the time that they were 13 or 14 and not cringe with just how awful it way?

Stop reading now if you are one of those people. This blog is NOT for you, but feel free to pop in again another time.

I'm in the middle of my Psych test and the current question is about conflicts in adolescence. Talk about reeling back in time. Suddenly, I'm chunky, wearing braces and zits and have a REALLY bad perm all over again. Not to mention in DIRE need of a make-up application lesson. Can you say Tammy Faye's younger sister? I knew you could.

But I've been thinking about it at work, because my cube-mate at work (my Mentor, really) has a 13-year-old daughter and she occasionally confides in me some of the horror stories. Some of them are truly horror stories and some of them are just the stories of an over-worked mom who has had enough. So, I have to wonder -- if someone had had my mother's ear, as it were, while I was in those delicate formative years what would I want them to say?? Because that's where the interesting part is...

Don't you remember when you were 13 and you literally thought the whole world revolved around you and your friends? If you didn't go to the 8th grade dance that you might as well resign yourself to a life of spinster-hood and be done with it? Luckily, my Mentor's daughter has it a little better than many because she actually is a good looking girl. This is a good start. I was not. And this isn't even me ragging on myself again, because I'll be the first to tell you that I was pretty cute in high school -- even if I did have another big perm then. It was the late 80's -- EVERYONE had a big perm, even the guys. But, is there anything that could have been done in that time of my life to make me fully realize that it was not all about me and that there were other people in the world? What would have made me appreciate my mother for all the work she did for me? What would have made me NOT roll my eyes when my father complained that he went to work with holes in his shoes just so I could buy yet ANOTHER pair of new shoes that I wouldn't wear 2 weeks after buying them??

I'm not sure. Looking back on it, I sure wish I knew because if I ever do have kids -- I want to be able to instill in them the right amount of appreciating me and defying me so that they could create their own lives. The appreciation part is not for selfish reasons, either. Oddly enough. It's because when I look back on the way I treated my parents then, after everything they did for me (and continue to do for me) it really bothers me. I know that THEY knew that I was just 13 and didn't know any better (and frankly, I was a pretty damned good kid) but still -- I wish that I'd known it then.

My God, what IS it with all this appreciation banter tonight? Appreciate your woman, appreciate your parents -- I suppose next it'll be about appreciating your pets and teachers...

Although, now that I think about it, Mrs. Lake in the 5th grade did a fine... Oh, right. Too mushy.

Where did all the funny shit go? Did this stuff used to be funny? I mean, to anyone other than me?

Boy, look at the crowd's disperse...