Saying goodbye to fifteen...

When I opened my blogger account this evening, there was something different. In the upper right-hand corner of my dashboard, there was something blinking. It was a notification that I, I (In)Sanity Gal, have (and a hush fell over the room) a follower.

The event brought on a certain level of nostalgia over my younger days when people were clamoring to follow me.

Ha.

The event actually brought on a reminiscing of all of those days that I desperately wished that someone would want to follow me or that some cool kid might lower themselves enough to let me follow them. But no, I sort of sat around neither following nor being followed, which in retrospect, is probably a good thing. But at the time it felt somewhere between unbearable (in middle school) and uncomfortable (in high school).

I really wanted to be a "cool kid." I had moments. In 8th grade when I moved to the small town, I was new and, thus, interested. I went steady with a Cool Boy. I slept over at The Coolest Girl's house. A lot actually. We were sort of almost besties. Of course you wouldn't have said that then. But there were some other girls who I knew could see right through me. I heard them once talking about my poor clothing choices. Instead of being annoyed and deciding that I didn't want them as friends anyway, I was just embarrassed and sort of irrationally angry at my parents - for not having more money, for not caring more about appearances, for not having more attractive offspring.

And then high school started. And The Coolest Girl became a cheerleader, and so did those other girls. And I joined the band.

As much as I try to convince the babe that the band was not that dorky at my high school, she never believes me. It's true in a lot of ways. There were some "cool kids" in the band. And there were a lot of kids who sort of bridged the gap and hung with both crowds.

But on the girl end, the cheerleaders were cool. On the boy end, it was the guys who apparently did nothing. Go figure.

It wasn't me, though. I think in part it was because they could smell it on me. That desire to be one of them.

And yet, it was sort of a mixed desire. I wanted to be one of them and disliked them as well - disliked their fickleness and their pettiness. In truth, I figure they were pretty much like me - just with another friend group. Trying to make it through high school and figure out who they were as people and what they wanted. It was so hard to see that at the time, though.

I was telling someone a story about high school recently, and I couldn't remember one of those girl's names. It made me laugh. I spent four years thinking that they were so important.

What's sad about that is high school was really great. I had great friends. I did really well in my classes. I loved being in the band. I learned how great theatre was. It was great. It seems sad that I spent any time at all thinking about whether or not I was a cool kid.


I guess what I'm trying to say here is Thank You, Virgin - for letting me lay that wish to rest.