Back in my elementary and high school days, when I was being horribly teased and/or set on fire, I often fantasized about what it would be like to be awesome. Naturally, I figured if I was awesome, I would be rid of my tormentors and could even show them up a little.
The only problem is that I had no idea what awesome was. In fact, it wasn't even a word we used often back in the Jurassic period when I went to school. We used words like "cool" and maybe "bitchin'".
Or maybe not; I could just be wishing we used "bitchin'" because it's a great word. I'd like to try and incorporate it into my daily vocabulary if at all possible.
With seemingly no inner awesomeness to draw on, I desperately looked for images that portrayed what I thought I had to achieve in order to be accepted and admired. I looked to movies and television shows first, of course. And, as I discovered, in the 80's you had to do the following things to be awesome:
- Have a great deal of money, or at least be able to fashion a polka dotted dress together in your run-down ghetto house that would blow away all the rich girl's outfits at the prom, thus showing that you could be just as successful at attracting a cute boy as those blond bitches (virtually all mean and popular girls in 80's movies were blond)
- Have very hot friends who are filled with drama, but who love you, but will steal your boyfriend, but will confront you on your eating disorder, but will rat you out to the teacher for cheating on the math final
- Said friends are 35 but are supposed to be 17. However, it's important to ignore that fact and all pretend you're young and hip and don't need face lifts to play your roles
- Meet every day at a regular restaurant with a catchy name, like The Peach Pit, and an owner who is heavily involved in the lives of his teen regulars without being a pedophile - we think
- When going for geek, look like Poindexter, complete with glasses and suspenders, but be willing to revamp your entire style, shedding even the much-needed spectacles and pant holders, all to win the love of a beautiful cheerleader who mysteriously wants you more than all the hot jocks
- Be the guy who's rebellious enough to hold on to the back of a Ford pickup as he skateboards to school - late, I might add - while simultaneously spending most of your free time with a creepy old scientist who steals plutonium from terrorists and butchers a perfectly good Delorean
- Have a horrible accent, hang out with a guy with a completely different horrible (or horribly done) accent, and magically win a Karate tournament against - wonder of wonders - the bully at school who likes the same girl you do!
- Be naked, from the future, have big muscles and - I'm starting to see a pattern here - a horrible accent, which only accentuates the 18 words you use throughout your killing spree
I managed to try skateboarding a few times. I also accepted a ride from an old man once but he kept putting his hand on my knee and never once mentioned martial arts, so I got out of the car.
In truth, I had no idea how to be cool, but what I was really great at was finding all the reasons why I didn't measure up to my peers. I was probably a bigger bully to myself than they were to me, which lead to my suicidal tendencies, excessive drinking, excessive, well, everything... And thus began the downward spiral.
On Saturday, June 13th, 2009, I will have 18 years of sobriety. Believe it or not, someone can go their entire adulthood and the bulk of their teen years with nary a drop o' the spirits, nor a puff of the leaf, nor any other mood altering substances, and yet still manage to be this insane. I have proven it and am oddly proud.
I've been very pensive this week as I think about my entire thirty-two years on the planet, including the fourteen prior to hitting rock bottom. This happens before every sobriety anniversary. It's a good thing, because it makes me more grateful for what I have - three beautiful kids, a great husband, wonderful family and friends - because I wouldn't have any of this if I hadn't embraced recovery. I would, like, suck at life. Or maybe I'd be dead. And worse, if I wasn't dead I would definitely be harried and ugly with tattoos I can't remember getting and a really bad shade of blond in my unwashed hair. Gross.
Good thing I'm sober and hot.
More importantly, I want to thank the Powers That Be for bestowing upon me the greatest of gifts: the realization that I am actually quite awesome. Extremely awesome. Radiantly awesome. All on my own, without the need to be something I'm not, and without living in Beverly Hills. I don't need any external factors to make me the great person I am today.
...Although the new phone and hot pink iPod do add something. I mean, seriously - they make me look cooler. Now if only I could build a time machine I could then bring them back and hand them to Loser Maven, who could walk around school flashing them for a day. Nothing like saying 'It's like a Walkman that holds about 200 mixed tapes, and it's from the future!' to win friends and influence people.
Bitchin'.