Get Off My Back, Gaaaaad.

I started re-reading 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' for the third time. Even reading it in present day, I'm still amazed at how well it hit the nail on the head about how weird it was to be a sixteen year old in high school.

I was never a somber child. In fact, I had a pretty fun time in high school. I was not popular, not in the slightest. Well, I was totally well-known in smaller circles.... like the Marching Band, Choir, Tech Theater and Theater.... Like, so totally popular.

My Jinko jeans were the jam. My super short pixie cut hair?...Desirable. I was voted "Most Likely to be on Comedy Central" by my Marching Band and was voted best Junior and best Senior...in the Marching Band. I thought I was extremely well-read because I read 'On the Road' once. I carried around a notebook in my back pocket for those moments of extreme clarity. I journaled, I made scarves, heck...I wrote terrible poetry about the moon, and often. And, let's just say it, I made the best mix tapes by far. I was a catch by any standard.

I never had a boyfriend in high school. Unless you count the countless male friends that I was obsessed with and would later, and still to this day, call my best friends. I knew how to joke with boys, but never actually knew how to talk to them like the females of my age group knew. Like any sixteen year old girl, I hated the way I looked, was scared of my body but was angry at others for not categorizing me as one of the pretty girls. I was thirty pounds heavier...a fault of Ben & Jerry, my employer. It would take me years for me to take pride in the way I looked. This would spawn trouble of course later when I went on a make-out rampage my Freshmen year of college.

My favorite thing to do was drive. I drove everywhere. I took the long way home so I could complete Side A of "Moody Sunday"...a mix. Growing up in the South, there were always quiet and dark places outside to go sit and be pretentious in. My favorite place was by a lake. My friends and I would find ourselves there, chain smoking and talking about how hard it was to be sixteen...while laying under the stars. It sounds all so Dawson's Creek. I'd actually love to go back to that lake now.

Looking back, I'm pretty convinced that that was the easiest period of my life thus far. Things seemed so hard and unchangeable. Parents just didn't understand you. No one was able to see how amazing you were. Feelings were easily hurt. College seemed so far away. Funny how we realize later how well we had it. While I would never choose to go back and do it all over again, and I don't regret any of the mistakes I've made, it would've been nice to turn up the fun a little more. Who knows, maybe I'll look back on 27 and think the same thing.

Anyway, this book is amazing and so well written. The language seems so simple and clear, but it really just lays it all out there. I recommend this book to anyone looking to get a little nostalgic.