Little Miss High School

(Note to reader: see post below this for context.)

Okay, okay, my Libra self has been thinking about the thirteen years of educational constraints before the relative bliss of college, and ... it really did suck. But the difficulties were exacerbated by a crushing introvertedness and awkwardness, not so much by external pressures but by the captivity of my own hypersensitivity and inability to deal with people. It probably also did not help that I was generally the last person picked for teams, and with good reason. But pain is a good teacher, and I am far more empathetic and kind than I might have been if communicating with other life forms had come easily to me. I think that the years of introverted observation were useful. Plus, it seems that it was all I could do given my extraordinary shyness.

Let's just say that, when I watch the Breakfast Club, it's the Ally Sheedy character who captivates me more than Molly Ringwald's.

It's the school play that brings on this melancholy - this anti-nostalgia for my youth. Plus, my daughter and I went shopping for a pageant dress this afternoon. We bought a secondhand periwinkle dress which gaped in the front. "No problem", she said. "I'll just pad my bra. All the girls do it."

Let me get this straight; my daughter - whose greatest glories include stage-diving at an Anti-Flag show and standing muddy and sunburned atop a garbage can at 3 a.m. to glimpse the dancing animal costumes while the Flaming Lips thrash out "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" -
this same daughter is looking into manicures and matching shoes and fretting over tanning appointments and alterations in order to display herself as Little Miss High School with an overstuffed bra and a dreadlocked beehive? My head is spinning.

But the sunny side of this equation is: at least my daughter is not crippled with shyness and low self-esteem like I was. She seems confident that this pageant experience is just another crazy moment in high school, and takes it in stride. And the difficult part of being a mother is standing back and letting her do it.

I think I'll go take several cleansing breaths now...

NTD