30 things about me as a teenager

26 years old, right after I got a new haircut!

I don't like to remember myself as a teenager, because they weren't my favorite years. In fact I always cringe when I run into someone from high school, because I can't stop worrying about what terrible things they might remember about me from those years. Hopefully the bad memories have faded and the good ones have remained... hopefully. (Cringe)

In case if you are wondering, I graduated from Brighton High school in 1996. Wow, that was a long time ago.

1. There was a two year period that I loved wearing black and wore it almost every day. (But I wouldn't wear all black, usually)

2. I wanted to decorate my room with black carpet and lots of mirrors, (but I didn’t get to.)

3. I had an awesome earring collection with huge, long, and crazy earrings.

4. I would spend lunch writing instead of eating.

5. I woke up at 5:00 every morning just to write.

6. I would style my hair in crazy and elaborate hairstyles.

7. I wore a lot of braids.

8. I was so poor in high school that one year my family couldn’t afford to buy me a year book.

9. When I was 17 years old I had to get my first root canal.

10. My mother made huge sacrifices, just so I could have braces. It was of the greatest gifts she ever gave me. I started flossing religiously and brushing obsessively so that I could have beautiful teeth when they were taken off.

11. My first job was Nielson’s Frozen Custard. I worked here for two years, and became very addicted.

12. I only had two “official” boyfriends in high school, but I dated each one for about a year.

13. I was completely devastated when my first boyfriend dumped me after a year so he could date another girl. (Looking back, I don’t blame him. I was a little clingy,) But at the time I was so heartbroken I honestly believed I would never, EVER, be able to love again! (Don’t you love teenage angst.)

14. There was one semester when I went to school at 6:00 am for early morning seminary, and then I stayed at school until 6:00 pm for marching band practice. (This was on top of having a job, taking pre-calculus, and advanced English. No wonder teenage kids get stressed out, and I know it’s worse now than it was back then!)

15. I never watched TV. I didn’t have time.

16. One summer we had to move my bed room into the living room. It was really weird when the visiting teachers would come over.

17. Every summer, for about 2-4 weeks I would go down to St. George and spend it with Sonnett. She may never know how much that time together saved my sanity, (even though I would drive her crazy at times.)

18. I loved wearing skirts and high heeled shoes.

19. I refused to leave the house without wearing makeup.

20. I wrote a lot of fiction in middle school, but in High school I mostly wrote poetry. Lots and lots of poetry.

21. No matter how hard I tried I never received a 4.0. I missed it each time by one A-! EACH TIME!!

22. I loved being in marching band, despite how much people made fun of me for it.

23. I once had a guy send me a box of long stemmed, red roses during school, that was the coolest thing ever! (It was the end of my senior year. He was a college student that I had met the night before at a party. I felt so flattered.) I still think delivered roses are the most romantic, the coolest, the sweetest thing in the world (hint, hint… too bad my husband doesn’t read this. But if anyone sees him you can give him the message.)

24. My mother and I fought every day (but I think that’s typical for some teenage girls)

25. My family had no money for clothes, so over half my wardrobe was borrowed from friends.

26. I drove a beast of a car from 1978, (I can’t remember the make or model). It was literally the size of a boat, and it only had am radio. A bad am radio! My little brother and I would crank up the sound and drag Highland Drive, rocking out to “Papa Loves Mambo”.

27. Most of my paycheck went to pay for food for the family, or anything I needed, (i.e. shampoo, contact lens solution toothpaste..)

28. I lost the contact for my left eye, and my family was so poor I couldn’t afford another, and my only pair of glasses were broken, so for six months I only wore one contact.

29. Between my parents hating each other and hardly speaking, my family being dirt poor, my boyfriend breaking up with me, and being overwhelmed with school and work I went into a huge depression during my junior year. This is the year that I worry about what people remember of me. (Like crying all day—sitting in front of my locker crying—crying so hard in class that the teacher finally asked me to leave because I was disturbing the class so much, … It was bad. Now you probably understand why I married a therapist. Not only a therapist, but one who specialize in adolescences, especially female adolescences. Yes, I feel like the Lord has always been watching over me)

30. I was very skinny in high school. I had a 21 inch waist. And although I would love to physically have that again, I would never want to be in the emotional situation I was in that left me with such a slender frame. I’d rather have my curves and be happy, than be slender and depressed. :