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April 26, 2006 11:54 AM- how to spell random, please?
This morning as I was driving to work ?cruising down country lanes at an octogenarian 40 mph, with native American flute music playing, sipping my delicious, fresh made smoothie, trying to absorb all the beauty of the sunshine splashing across the lake and to catch sight of sundry wildlife?the thought occurred to me
I was a shit in high school.
A total shit.
If I was a guy, I might say I was a fucking peckerhead, but that doesn?t really apply so I?ll stick with my first thought which, as first thoughts are wont to be, captured the truth perfectly.
If I were a better writer or possessed of any philosophical leanings, I might be able to follow this thought to some place where I might gain insight, knowledge, an appreciation for quantum physics, the ability to explain why popsicles are quiescently frozen.
Alas no.
I guess I just like knowing that people can change. I like knowing that there are many different parts of us; behavior we exhibit is not necessarily our core self as much as it is the self that surfaces in any given environment.
For a very long time, I could not reconcile the shit that I was, with the person I wanted to become. It felt that because I had once thought and behaved with such shit for brains that I could never be free of that person. That she was me. Forever and ever.
But that?s not true.
At this time in my life I experience the deepest levels of contentment and wild delight that I have ever known. I strongly believe that this is only the beginning and that my pleasures are only going to increase in number and depth. I feel completely free from that piss-ant, miserable creature, inspiration for ?Heathers? part of me that was once at my center.
Memories of her still surface now and again but when they do I simply look at her standing off there in the distance and think
What a little shit.
And then go back to whatever I was doing.
It's always been a profound embarrassment to me (once I got into my twenties and began reviewing my life from a very different perspective) that I could have ever been such a creature. Of course I wish I could've had my shit together and been an evolved, caring, witty soul who invented the internet during study hall.
I'll never be without that chagrin. The difference is now I have a modicum of pride in the changes I've pushed myself through.
And now, we can safely say this blog has landed firmly in the mother of all diaper pails-- damn my stream of consciousness.
got 2 cents?
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la vie en rose says:
i love it! i've changed a lot too. i wouldn't have called myself a shit...i was more of a prudish, bible-carryin', judgement goodie-goodie...and that's just as bad as being a shit. perhaps it's a shit of a different color.
posted on: April 26
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Andrea says:
It's amazing the transformations we go through as we get older. I have been so many different people in my life that it's almost hard to keep track. Funny that, when I was younger, I was constantly changing without trying, and now that I?m older I?m trying so hard to change but can?t!
posted on: April 26
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Janeen says:
It is very good to know that people can change, good to see that we oursleves have changed. I was reading some old journals the other day, and I was absolutely appalled at my behavior, and towards someone who loved me very much. It was so gratifying to realize that yes, I have grown up since then. And hooray for ever-increasing pleasures. I'm down with that!
posted on: April 26
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skunk cabbage green says:
ha ha-- Michelle! I love it. Forget parachutes. What color is your shit?
posted on: April 26
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sarai says:
and i thought i was the only one who was a prick in high school. i think most of us are destined to be horrible creatures at that age.
again my mother was right-it WAS just a phase. thank god.
and ps-i love your stream of consciousness.
posted on: April 26
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Vaguely Urban says:
Sounds like your hard-fought change gives you all the more appreciation for the place you are now. Good for you!
p.s. Everyone was a shit in high school, of one variety or another.
posted on: April 26
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Chris says:
I think high school makes us shits. It's a defense mechanism against the cruelty that is inherent to children and teenagers. Sometimes it's how we learn to be decent people. Trial-and-error, if you will. It's the people who are still shits 15, 20, 30 years down the road that are so sad. They never learned how to be more than their 16-year-old selves.
posted on: April 26
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lizardek says:
Whew! I'm glad I didn't know you in high school, even though I was pretty much friends with EVERYONE. But, even so, maybe you had to be that shit in order to become the person you are now. The non-shit, that is. The so-far-from-shit it's incredible. The anti-shit.
posted on: April 26
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Rebekah says:
I love the word shit; it may cover more ground than any in the entire world (pun not intended, truly). You may have been a Dumb Shit in high school or a Shit preceded by another modifier - but today, I think you are THE SHITS - and I say that in the most, most loving spirit possible. That is GOOD.
posted on: April 26
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wee says:
lizardek: the "anti-shit" cracked me up. I'm going to swipe that and employ it regularly now.
I totally can't imagine you were ever a shit, BP, but my over-riding thought was:ohmigawd. I don't think I've changed much. Not really. Not in great ways. And that kind of scared me. What if I stopped growing? What if I'm not advancing? What if I always remain turd-ified?!
hold me.
posted on: April 26
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bp says:
oh this is killer--- my evolutionary chart will read, "once was a shit but is now the shit also known as the anti-shit"
posted on: April 26
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Bridget says:
I dunno, some posts I can totally see a little bit of impish shit in you dear poppy! A clever freckle-faced type of mischief peeks out from all that beautiful imagery you bring to the page.
Personally, well I would have agreed with you last month, but as things turn out I am devolving instead. Maybe next life around.
-XO
posted on: April 26
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samantha says:
High school is a funny thing. I still think about those tough, mean girls I knew with a little trepidation, even though perhaps inwardly I glory 'cause most of them married around 21 with a baby on the way (not that there's anything wrong with that!) and I am still sleeping each and every night for at least seven hours unless I had an unfortunate encounter with a caffeinated beverage. And now they're on their second husbands. So maybe I have turned into a shit? Anyway, my darling BP you are now very much the sweetest anti-shit the world has ever known. And the coolest.
posted on: April 26
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tinker says:
Almost everyone has at least some shit in their past; it's just a matter of whether we stay down in the cesspool with our shit - or drag it up into the light and turn it into fertilizer so we can grow out of it - you've clearly done the latter, BP :>)
posted on: April 27
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Ruby's Mum says:
Ha..I'm hearing you loud and clear. I recently went back to my old highschool to deliver a speech to the entire student body and i opened with a line that said.."To all of my former teachers ..I am so sorry for giving you hell!" I don't think I was quite a shit..i was more the argumentative book nerd (some might say that was worse) but I was also a deeply unhappy little thing at the time and lacked the maturity to deal with it. People DO change, assholes morph inexplicably into wonderful, loyal and inspiring people. That's part of the wonder of being a human being..
Have a wonderful day, from Ruby and me.
posted on: April 27
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jes says:
Oh me oh my....and the memories come streaming back into my little pea brain....I have never been proud at what an absolute terror I was at times...I just thought I was so justified...and I'm going to defend myself here and say HEY, I WAS a teen of the 80's...Breakfast Club, ST Elmo's and Fast Times @ Ridgemont High kept us thinking we had to be JUST SO. Thankgod in my sophmore year I started dating an older muscician and discovered a little sugar magnolia......xoxox
posted on: April 27
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frecklegirl jess says:
Boy, I wish I had had the guts to be a shit in high school. I was too busy being afraid of my own shadow.
posted on: April 27
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Lil says:
And I was the one the shits tormented. Funny how we change, isn't it?
posted on: April 28
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Claire says:
I was a TOTAL shit too! (Judd Nelson in the Breakfast Club was my hero!) So glad you can be detatched when you look back at it. I feel like it was another life but I'm still a little ashamed of my teenage antics - especially as some of my extended family STILL seem to have me fixed in their heads as that person, not this one now! My karma perhaps?
posted on: April 28
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