My friend Erica just uploaded a bunch of scanned photos from when we were in high school. I haven’t yet dug up my old photo albums, so you’ve never seen the younger me. But don’t worry, I stole a bunch of Erica’s to share. Ready to see me in high school?

This is me at my junior prom:

I loved that purple shimmery dress so much. I didn’t have a date that year, but I had more fun than I did at senior prom, to which I went with my then boyfriend. Boys are lame.

This one is from our Super Bowl party:

Some friends and I got together one year on Super Bowl Sunday and pretended like we cared. We smoked fake cigars (beef sticks), drank fake beer (soda), played fake poker (Go Fish, I’m sure) and had the game on in the background. Or maybe we just watched a movie, I can’t remember. My shirt says “I Heart Aerobics.” Ha!

My friends and I also had a thing about the Spice Girls. We weren’t necessarily huge fans, but we loved imitating them. We were the Spice Girls for Halloween, for fun photo shoots, and even for skits at band camp. Oh yes, band camp. That’s where this particular Spice Girls shot came from:

If you’re curious, I started out as Ginger Spice, but senior year I cut my hair short and so moved into the Posh Spice role. (Sorry I didn’t get permission to put the other girls on this site, hence the stars. But me as Posh doesn’t have quite the same affect without the full photo, so I couldn’t crop of course.)

And last, this is me and Erica in our marching band uniforms:

I played the flute from 6th to 12th grade, both marching and concert band. All my friends were in band, so I actually really enjoyed it. Erica and I met in 6th grade when she moved to our school and sat next to me in band. We’ve been friends ever since.

I promise you I was seriously dorky earlier in life, so I’ll have to dig those out someday.

Two of my best blogger buddies read my post yesterday and wrote their own accounts of adolescent insecurity. You should check out Katie’s post (at Willikat) and Angie’s post (at Found Out About Me).

That got me thinking more about this topic. I think a lot of my insecurities were wrapped up in my comparison to my younger sister (Andrea, the hot one). She was pretty and skinny and popular and athletic and artistic and talented. I, according to my own thoughts, was none of those things.

Even though I can see now that I had it pretty good then*, it was never enough because my sister always had more and better. And the worst part is that she and I didn’t get along, so not only was I painfully jealous of my younger sister, but she really had no use for me. A lot of my self-confidence, or lack of it, resulted from how I related to Andrea.

Surprisingly I was rarely teased or mocked or bullied by classmates, so very little of my insecurity issues spawned from my peers. Sure, I felt ridiculous in gym class and I shied away from direct contact with the “popular” kids, but I was spared a lot of the pain that many teenagers cause each other.

For me, it was all about crying myself to sleep so many nights because even though I was the older sister, I was much less important in the world. Looking back, I think I had some issues with depression in my adolescence, and I think a lot of it manifested itself in my feelings about self-worth compared to my sister.

Oddly though, it was that summer we spent in Yellowstone together that brought us closer. We spent nearly every day together, and we had lots of fun. We came out of that experience closer than we had ever been. It took a couple more years before I stopped comparing myself to her and learned to love myself, but it helped that we were finally friends, as well as sisters.

*I don’t think I ever really found myself ugly, but certainly not pretty. Looking back, I was such a good size – not too gangly, and not at all overweight – but I hated my hips and thighs and stomach at the time. I was not popular in the sense of being part of the “in crowd” but I had lots of great friends, and I believe I was well-liked in general with no real enemies. I’ve never been athletic, so that was no illusion. I’m not artistic, though I am pretty creative, but that wasn’t good enough back then. As for talented… I still don’t know that I’m talented. I’m capable, competent and good at many things, but I’ve always said that I don’t have a true talent. I’m good at many things, great at none.

A few years ago I wrote about a few things I still feel guilty about, and two of them involved events that happened on a bus. When I reread that post recently, I was reminded of a few other bus stories. Why my bus life is so prominent in my memory, I do not know.

1. Kindergarten. It was Show and Tell day, and I chose to bring a new stuffed animal I had. A fuzzy white lamb. Innocent enough. Unless you have Devil Bus Driver driving you to school. My little fuzzy white lamb had a bell tied around it’s neck, and the sweet jingly noise a lamb bell makes? UNACCEPTABLE! Devil Bus Driver demanded silence at all times, and when she heard the accidental jingle from somewhere behind her, she demanded to know who it was. Everyone pointed in my direction. Unfortunately this story doesn’t end with her ripping my lamb in half and running it over with her bus. Because that would be a sweet story. No, she just yelled at me and told me to never bring that thing on the bus again. (Devil Bus Driver is the same one who let the high schoolers duct tape our mouths shut, as mentioned in the last post.)

2. Elementary school. I’m not sure which grade, but I was pretty young. And I didn’t have Devil Bus Driver at the time. I got on the bus after school, promptly fell asleep in a back seat, and woke up when the bus was empty. I panicked. I didn’t dare reveal myself to the driver right away, so I hid in my seat as we rumbled along, trying to figure out what to do. Eventually she heard me or spotted me, called me forward, and asked why the hell I was still on her bus. She was not thrilled. And neither were the bus garage administrators who told her to turn around and drop me off. And neither was my mom who was at home wondering why her daughter didn’t get off the bus that day.

3. Middle School. This girl, whom we’ll call Marina, was kind of a bully. I’m sure she was one of those girls who had a tough life and took it out on her peers, especially those weaker than her, which I surely was. She would bug my sister and I a lot with pestering and name calling. Nothing that really stung, she was just obnoxious. One day Marina was being particularly obnoxious, and she must have said something to us in particular, because when we got off the bus (we were one of the first stops), my sister and I, simultaneously but without it being planned, turned around and flipped her off. I think we may have even called out a particular B word. It was magical. It sounds pretty innocuous, I know, but at the time, the spontaneity and synchronization of that small gesture? Spectacular.

Here’s my next high school treasure. This is actually something my friend Erica found in her boxes of junk, and because she felt guilty throwing it away, I promised her I’d post it here so we’d always have it. And so you can see more of my mad rhyming skills.

In high school Erica and I would often make silly little gifts for each other. I remember one time I was sick and she brought me a care package full of fun and goofy things. But one of the best gifts I gave her was for her 16th birthday. We had gone through driver’s ed together, and even though she was turning 16 five months after me, she had a car and I didn’t. So this birthday was a big deal for both of us. In honor of that, I wrote a little poem/song type thing, made it colorful and put it in a frame. And proving that it’s the thought that counts (and not the big expensive gifts), she absolutely loved it.

This is a picture she took before letting it go, though you can’t see that it’s framed, and you can’t really read it anymore because it has faded over time.

And here is how it reads:

So I see that it’s your birthday!
A special one at that!

Hey wow! You’re finally sixteen,
And that’s extremely phat!

You’ll now get your own car
And you’ll finally have a license!

Come on girl! Get off your butt!
Um, nothing rhymes with license!

Drive to my house and pick me up!
We’ll cruise around all day!

We’re free! We’re free! And both 16!
So steer that care my way!

Won’t hafta worry ’bout
A freakish parent’s frown.

And never hear through megaphones
Hey red car slow down!

You’ve learned to watch for ‘hidden’ poles!
And mastered how to merge!

Parking lots are easy as pie!
More speed though I must urge!

Stop reading this! Let’s go! Let’s go!
I’m still at home, bored!

When 16, you have a privilege!
Which cannot be ignored.

Unless of course, you have no car.
In my case, this is true!

But you’re 16, and have your own!
I’ll hitch a ride with you!

Clearly there are lots of inside jokes going on, but I think my rhyming skills had improved since I was 14 and wrote about my weeded heart. But again with the excessive exclamation points everywhere. Ugh!!!!!

One time Erica made me a totally kick-ass calendar of Nick Stahl (see my high school “Screw List”) that I held on to forever. I had to throw it away recently, but I did get pictures, which I’ll have to share with you later since Ireland photos burned me out and I haven’t uploaded any since.

(This is my last embarrassing artifact from high school until I go back to my dad’s for more.)

Here’s another treasure I found in my boxes of high school ‘keepsakes.’ It’s a poem I wrote, dated 10-5-1995. I was two months shy of 15 then, a freshman. Let me preface this by saying that I never wrote poetry, so it’s not like I thought this was any good even then. But I did struggle with some minor depression issues (though I didn’t know that’s what it was), and I was clearly feeling lonely and empty and unloved when I wrote it.

I am no longer lonely, empty or feeling unloved, so we can all have a good laugh at my terrible, awful, horrible attempt at poetry. I mean rhyming? Really?

To Anyone Who Cares:

I hate being hated,
but I love being loved!
Yet my feelings always seem to
be pushed, tugged and shoved!

I want to be wanted,
and I need to be needed!
But my heart always seems to
be pulled at and weeded!

I wish to be wished for,
I hope to be hoped!
Yet I keep hearing things like,
‘no way’ and ‘nope!’

If had a choice,
of what I could be,
I know that I wouldn’t,
I wouldn’t choose me.

-Shannon [Last Name]-
10-5-95

My heart is being weeded? What exactly does that mean? Oh it rhymes with needed, I get it. And what’s with all the exclamation points? Am I yelling this poem?

That last stanza makes me a little sad for my 14-year old self because I so remember wishing I could be anybody but who I was. Since then, however, I’ve learned how lucky I am to be me, and I’ve learned to own who I am. Thank god, because nobody wants me writing such ridiculous poetry anymore. Can I get a wha wha?