Lucky Number Thirteen

I learned the truth at 13. No...wait...that was Janis Ian, and she was 17.

Hmmm, I guess I don't really remember the beginning of my teenage years. I turned 13 a couple months into 8th grade at BMS (Barrington Middle School of course), so I guess it was 2001. Oh yeah, I remember making a big deal because my brother's high school open house was the same night as my birthday, and of course it would be an outrage if my parents went to that and skipped out on celebrating my 13th birthday. Overall it was pretty uneventful.

Back then I was still playing softball, and the summers were awesome playing All-Stars. However, it was totally lame at the same time because my mom was an "assistant" coach. I use the term loosely because in my opinion she never knew what she was talking about, but I'm only her daughter so I guess my thoughts about it didn't matter.

Thinking hard, I remember that was the year that for practically every book report-type thing we had due, me and like all my friends would just read The Princess Diaries books...it was pretty sweet. I remember I'd go to "parties" at my friend's house, before drinking was the thing to do, and we'd order pizza, watch stupid movies, and play manhunt for all of ten minutes, after which everyone gave up because there was no where to hide (of course they didn't listen to me telling them that from the beginning). Even then I wasn't doing much in school, I mean come on I was in the 8th grade! It doesn't get much cooler than that. Sometimes I wish I did and wasn't such a slacker; that definitely carried on into high school.

I started high school and of course was ignored by my older brother. The last thing he wanted was for people to realize we were related even though it was so completely obvious considering we have the same last name and look so much alike. Sometimes brothers can be stupid.

I wish I had known then, what I know now, even in terms of school material; I would be super smart now. I probably didn't have the greatest of friends, some were good, but others were of the super fake, mean, 13 year-old-girl variety, and that's not good for anyone's self esteem.

But most of all, I wish I had realized what those crushes on my English teachers were really about and why I obsessed over that one Dixie Chick (Emily)... It would have made me more aware about myself and maybe then I wouldn't have felt so uncomfortable all throughout high school trying to be the person I wasn't and I'm not.