(no subject)
I used to have this irresistible urge to record my life, to jot down the comings and goings of thoughts in my head and make sure I would have access to them later on down the road. Most of the time, it was all the negative things, the trivialities that now seem like they shouldn't have mattered. But I was younger, a thing that only time can tell, and I had a much smaller view of the world. Perhaps I thought my pain would be better recorded as a learning tool for my older self. Maybe I thought that if I put all my hurt into this public place that someone in the cosmos would see it and join my misery. Or make it go away. I didn't know better. No one ever does. Does it matter? Is it simply one of those trivial things that isn't really one of the things I should be worrying about? I am such a worry wart.
Empire Records. One of the many. It may have been said before but I will always remember it from that movie. I don't regret not doing things. I don't regret doing things. Life is too short to waste on regret. I'm sure that's from a movie too. My life seems to revolve around movies lately. My life in pictures. How very different it would have been. The thought of production has run through my head far too many times in the past few months. And then there's the whole lottery thing. "If I ever win the lottery..." So many options. What would I do...?
I had such passion as a child. I was fearless. I was the conqueror of anything I came across. I was crafty and manipulative and I knew it. In kindergarten I dubbed myself "Queen of the Kissy Girls". It was that time in life where girls had cooties and the sexes separated on the playground. I don't know why, but I thought it was funny to see the boys fleeing before me! So the girls would run around the playground chasing the boys with kissy lips. You know the ones I'm talking about. Pucker up! I was a leader. I was the leader. I had such passion as a child.
I don't remember any of it now. People can remember pieces of their childhoods when they think back on it. I can't. I remember things from pictures. I see this picture and remember that people told me that I used to love posing for the cameras. You can see it in my pictures. I was such a ham. I see another picture and remember someone telling me that I always loved climbing on the spider webs. I have vague memories of hitting red rubber balls. Two-square? Handball? I can't remember. People tell me my favourite elementary school teacher was my first grade teacher (who was also my second grade teacher) Mrs. Weaver. Perhaps it was because she was the teacher who saw such promise in me. It was from her classroom that I was skipped. She was a combo teacher, taught first and second graders in one classroom. I was booted from the first grade side into the second grade side. The first child in the history of the school to be skipped a grade. I don't remember her. I don't remember what she looked like. I can't remember the name of my third grade teacher. Or my first fourth grade teacher. Something happened that year and I started performing poorly. They say it's because one of my classmates used to bully me, tell me my parents didn't love me and that's why I was adopted. I don't remember anything like that happening at all. But then I don't remember much any way. Mrs. Kazebee was my second fourth grade teacher. She was good friends with mom. Her older daughter was friends with my older sister. And her younger daughter was friends with my younger sisters. Mrs. Tewell was fifth grade. Now that I think about it there was a Mrs. Campbell in there somewhere. My elementary school goes to grade six. But my parents didn't let me stay. Mom taught in a different school district that had a better educational reputation as well as being safer and blah blah blah. I started middle school with no friends. Everything went downhill from there.
I tried to stay in touch with my old friends but it didn't really happen. I'd left them all before we started making our own play dates. In elementary school we were still at the age where parents arranged things for us. I lost them all when I moved school districts. I was enrolled in sports, hoping it would help me make friends. I made friends with the other outcast, as things would go. She was a foster child. The softball season ended and with it went our friendship. She was taken out of foster care and given back to her dad. I never saw her again. I excelled at softball in the spring, soccer in winter. But I was never good enough to make the "A" teams during the "all-star" off season. Always the "B" teams. One of my coaches called it political crap because my parents never shelled out the money to put me into the private league teams and that's why I never made it. Even with the sports I never really fit in. I managed to find a misfit group of friends outside of sports and we kind of kept that small group through middle school and then through high school. I flitted in and out of a few different groups but there was always that small core to always come back to. I think the high light of my middle school years was the ability to say "I went to school with Jodie Sweetin!" I was such a loser.
Sports carried into high school and I made the frosh-soph team in both sports, even after all my coaches said I was good enough to make JV teams my freshman year. Again with the political bullshit... I'd never played in the private leagues.
My first boyfriend, freshman year. We went out for two weeks before I let peer pressure get the better of me. He was ridiculed in some of the girl groups, and I, for whatever reason, buckled under the intensity of their mockery. By the end of the year my best friend had convinced me to join choir with her. After a last hurrah "farewell to sports" soccer tournament in Hawai'i I bid farewell to softball and soccer and said hello to choirography. That was also the first and last year that I did a 9-minute mile. So I joined choir and my high school existence became that much brighter. My "ex" was in choir as well, as it were. I decided peer pressure was crap and we got back together that year. I re-developed a love for music sophmore year. I had always loved music as a child, my parents started all of their kids on piano lessons but I was the only one who stuck with it. I'm 29 and I've played for 22 years. I don't regret any of it. My then boyfriend decided to push me into auditioning for the school musical. My first musical and I was cast in my first and last lead role. I'd never even heard of the musical before auditioning for it that year, but it's been with me ever since. Children of Eden. Leave it to me to be the heretic character in the biblical story. But Yonah was my first part ever and I will always have a special place in my heart for her.
After that...things just went crazy. Maybe it was because I gave my virginity up at 16. Maybe it was because I was beginning to realise I had no bright light in my future. Maybe it was because my high school sweetheart was not as sweet as I thought he was. We had a rocky relationship. We fought far too often. We broke up in the worst places and at the worst times. I think my worst timing was at a choir competition...before we'd gone on stage. Bitchy move, now that I think back on it.
Junior year was the year we did the School House Rock musical... I was Interplanet Janet and the musical was a practical joke, even if the music was fun. But junior year was my year in choir. I had solos in every concert. All my friends wanted to sing with me. That was the year the Broadway Concert did "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King. The song opens with dual soloists singing back and forth. I got one of those. I had so much fun with it. And dude. Disney? I was lovin' it. I also got the solo in "Endless Night". LOVED IT. And then the Christmas concert. A quartet singing "Carol of the Bells". LOVED IT. The spring musical was always our competition sets. I had a solo for "My Funny Valentine", probably the only solo I've hated. I wasn't trained and our choir director had set me as a 1st Soprano. The solo in that song has some funky intervals. I wasn't ready for it and she knew it. Even though I couldn't sing it beautifully I could still manage to keep it fairly in key...which is all she really wanted. It didn't help my self-esteem at the time. Especially when all three of the other soloists in the group kept getting "Outstanding Solo" awards in the competitions. I felt like such shit after every competition. If we didn't place it was always my fault because of that stupid a capella song. Probably not but still. Doesn't help a high schooler much when they're not feeling up to snuff anyway.
Senior year brought my last rejection into the school's "top" show choir. I was still in the top girls show choir but that mixed group was all I ever wanted at the time. It also brought along my introduction to the musical Once Upon A Mattress. There are some things about that musical that irk me. But it's over all enjoyable.
Ugh... I can't complain about my life. It was normal. I didn't have any difficult hardships, at least, none that I can really remember. It was fairly typical. Nothing noteworthy about it. There are aspects of my high school career that I really wish I could have done over. But who doesn't...?
And now I've lost the train...
Empire Records. One of the many. It may have been said before but I will always remember it from that movie. I don't regret not doing things. I don't regret doing things. Life is too short to waste on regret. I'm sure that's from a movie too. My life seems to revolve around movies lately. My life in pictures. How very different it would have been. The thought of production has run through my head far too many times in the past few months. And then there's the whole lottery thing. "If I ever win the lottery..." So many options. What would I do...?
I had such passion as a child. I was fearless. I was the conqueror of anything I came across. I was crafty and manipulative and I knew it. In kindergarten I dubbed myself "Queen of the Kissy Girls". It was that time in life where girls had cooties and the sexes separated on the playground. I don't know why, but I thought it was funny to see the boys fleeing before me! So the girls would run around the playground chasing the boys with kissy lips. You know the ones I'm talking about. Pucker up! I was a leader. I was the leader. I had such passion as a child.
I don't remember any of it now. People can remember pieces of their childhoods when they think back on it. I can't. I remember things from pictures. I see this picture and remember that people told me that I used to love posing for the cameras. You can see it in my pictures. I was such a ham. I see another picture and remember someone telling me that I always loved climbing on the spider webs. I have vague memories of hitting red rubber balls. Two-square? Handball? I can't remember. People tell me my favourite elementary school teacher was my first grade teacher (who was also my second grade teacher) Mrs. Weaver. Perhaps it was because she was the teacher who saw such promise in me. It was from her classroom that I was skipped. She was a combo teacher, taught first and second graders in one classroom. I was booted from the first grade side into the second grade side. The first child in the history of the school to be skipped a grade. I don't remember her. I don't remember what she looked like. I can't remember the name of my third grade teacher. Or my first fourth grade teacher. Something happened that year and I started performing poorly. They say it's because one of my classmates used to bully me, tell me my parents didn't love me and that's why I was adopted. I don't remember anything like that happening at all. But then I don't remember much any way. Mrs. Kazebee was my second fourth grade teacher. She was good friends with mom. Her older daughter was friends with my older sister. And her younger daughter was friends with my younger sisters. Mrs. Tewell was fifth grade. Now that I think about it there was a Mrs. Campbell in there somewhere. My elementary school goes to grade six. But my parents didn't let me stay. Mom taught in a different school district that had a better educational reputation as well as being safer and blah blah blah. I started middle school with no friends. Everything went downhill from there.
I tried to stay in touch with my old friends but it didn't really happen. I'd left them all before we started making our own play dates. In elementary school we were still at the age where parents arranged things for us. I lost them all when I moved school districts. I was enrolled in sports, hoping it would help me make friends. I made friends with the other outcast, as things would go. She was a foster child. The softball season ended and with it went our friendship. She was taken out of foster care and given back to her dad. I never saw her again. I excelled at softball in the spring, soccer in winter. But I was never good enough to make the "A" teams during the "all-star" off season. Always the "B" teams. One of my coaches called it political crap because my parents never shelled out the money to put me into the private league teams and that's why I never made it. Even with the sports I never really fit in. I managed to find a misfit group of friends outside of sports and we kind of kept that small group through middle school and then through high school. I flitted in and out of a few different groups but there was always that small core to always come back to. I think the high light of my middle school years was the ability to say "I went to school with Jodie Sweetin!" I was such a loser.
Sports carried into high school and I made the frosh-soph team in both sports, even after all my coaches said I was good enough to make JV teams my freshman year. Again with the political bullshit... I'd never played in the private leagues.
My first boyfriend, freshman year. We went out for two weeks before I let peer pressure get the better of me. He was ridiculed in some of the girl groups, and I, for whatever reason, buckled under the intensity of their mockery. By the end of the year my best friend had convinced me to join choir with her. After a last hurrah "farewell to sports" soccer tournament in Hawai'i I bid farewell to softball and soccer and said hello to choirography. That was also the first and last year that I did a 9-minute mile. So I joined choir and my high school existence became that much brighter. My "ex" was in choir as well, as it were. I decided peer pressure was crap and we got back together that year. I re-developed a love for music sophmore year. I had always loved music as a child, my parents started all of their kids on piano lessons but I was the only one who stuck with it. I'm 29 and I've played for 22 years. I don't regret any of it. My then boyfriend decided to push me into auditioning for the school musical. My first musical and I was cast in my first and last lead role. I'd never even heard of the musical before auditioning for it that year, but it's been with me ever since. Children of Eden. Leave it to me to be the heretic character in the biblical story. But Yonah was my first part ever and I will always have a special place in my heart for her.
After that...things just went crazy. Maybe it was because I gave my virginity up at 16. Maybe it was because I was beginning to realise I had no bright light in my future. Maybe it was because my high school sweetheart was not as sweet as I thought he was. We had a rocky relationship. We fought far too often. We broke up in the worst places and at the worst times. I think my worst timing was at a choir competition...before we'd gone on stage. Bitchy move, now that I think back on it.
Junior year was the year we did the School House Rock musical... I was Interplanet Janet and the musical was a practical joke, even if the music was fun. But junior year was my year in choir. I had solos in every concert. All my friends wanted to sing with me. That was the year the Broadway Concert did "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King. The song opens with dual soloists singing back and forth. I got one of those. I had so much fun with it. And dude. Disney? I was lovin' it. I also got the solo in "Endless Night". LOVED IT. And then the Christmas concert. A quartet singing "Carol of the Bells". LOVED IT. The spring musical was always our competition sets. I had a solo for "My Funny Valentine", probably the only solo I've hated. I wasn't trained and our choir director had set me as a 1st Soprano. The solo in that song has some funky intervals. I wasn't ready for it and she knew it. Even though I couldn't sing it beautifully I could still manage to keep it fairly in key...which is all she really wanted. It didn't help my self-esteem at the time. Especially when all three of the other soloists in the group kept getting "Outstanding Solo" awards in the competitions. I felt like such shit after every competition. If we didn't place it was always my fault because of that stupid a capella song. Probably not but still. Doesn't help a high schooler much when they're not feeling up to snuff anyway.
Senior year brought my last rejection into the school's "top" show choir. I was still in the top girls show choir but that mixed group was all I ever wanted at the time. It also brought along my introduction to the musical Once Upon A Mattress. There are some things about that musical that irk me. But it's over all enjoyable.
Ugh... I can't complain about my life. It was normal. I didn't have any difficult hardships, at least, none that I can really remember. It was fairly typical. Nothing noteworthy about it. There are aspects of my high school career that I really wish I could have done over. But who doesn't...?
And now I've lost the train...