I just finished reading "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and it really brought me back to my days as a tortured adolescent. I identified a lot with Charlie, the brilliant and emotional wallflower, who loved reading and music. And I also write the way I talk.
In high school, I was really angry with everything. I hated my abusive, overly-critical mother. I hated my high school with its ethnic divisions. I hated my teachers who talked about my unused potential. I hated my teachers who didn't recognize my potential. I alternately loved and hated my best friend.
I spent a lot of time listening to sad music and crying in my room. I cut myself. I looked at bottles of pain killers like they were a way out. I wrote songs and poetry. I smoked and drank whatever I could find. It sounds so pathetic, and it was, but I was lost...struggling to find meaning to my life and thinking that happiness would never come to me.
In the book, Charlie's teacher tells him to read a book like a "filter" and not a "sponge." And I think that's how we should be in life, not just with books. As a child and a teenager, I was a sponge. I absorbed every negative thing every said or done to me. As a child my mother physically abused me. As a teenager she verbally abused me. I wallowed in my misery, and turned it over it my head listening to Tori Amos, Suzanne Vega, and other artists with gut-wrenching, tear-draining music.
I was reckless with my life, not because I felt invincible, but because I didn't care. Because I thought nobody cared. I skipped school, shoplifted, smoked, drank...and it's only by the grace of God that I never became addicted to drugs or pregnant. I even went through a brief anorexic period, but only because I couldn't stomach bulimia.
I thought I was in love with a few boys, but always unrequited because nobody wanted to be the white guy with the Asian girl and nobody wanted to be with a girl who was smart. And it wasn't until the last year of high school that I realized those boys actually might have returned my feelings, but didn't have the balls to make a move because social pressures were just too overwhelming. Not until one got drunk and pulled me into his lap to snuggle at the after-grad party. Not until one came over and made out with me after we graduated high school.
And it wasn't until university that I actually began to "participate" in life. I met my now husband and he was so different from me. He wasn't a miserable adolescent. He had a great high school experience and went to university with a purpose. He worked hard for himself and not out of parental expectations.
And looking at his life, I realized that I was not a victim, but playing one. I was torturing myself trying to punish my mother, but I was ruining my own chances at a great life in doing so. And I started to be a filter instead of a sponge. Just because someone says something bad about me, doesn't make it so. And I did have a lot of potential that I wasn't using.
So my life really started at 18. I no longer torture myself with sad music, although I still appreciate a great tune. I still love a good book. I still believe that what people do and say to me is more a product of who they are than who I am. I'm successful in my career. I found love in my husband and our children. And even with all of my challenges, I'm happy. It's a choice...and I'll continue to make it.
