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ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about the fact that 20 years ago when I was in high school, I was Emo before Emo was even cool. Heck, I was Emo before Emo had even been invented yet. I, at 16, helped pave the path to pathetic that so many kids now wearing their hair in their faces and writing bad poetry about suicide now claim as their own. To these kids, who feel that no one understands them, I want to tell you that I do understand you because I used to be you. This is why, when I come across one of you now, I laugh and make fun of you.
Look, Emo kids, I have some bad news and you might as well hear it from one who has been there: one of these days you are going to grow up and get over it, just like everyone is telling you to do. There's nothing you can do to stop it, unless you really do kill yourself (and you know that, despite all the talk that gets you so much attention, your heart really isn't in it, is it?).
But take comfort: there are worse things than growing up and becoming a productive member of society. For example, you could stay the way you are now. Forever. Considering how annoying you are at this point in your life, this is the worst thing that could possibly happen.
In my defense, I want to state that my fall into Emo was accidental. After my mother died during my sophomore year in high school, I was dealing with the usual teenage angzieties while while working through the stages of grief, so I had some genuine angst to lay claim to.
On a whim I jumped abord the New Wave fashion bandwagon, which innovated the bad haircuts that the Emo kids today have reclaimed as their own. I grew my bangs long so that they hang over one eye, and streaking my hair with colors like pink and blue (usually to match my outfit). The bangs alone were impressive; I went through my entire junior year of high school with no depth perception. My wardrobe staples were black leggings, big baggy shirts, and little black ankle boots. Instead of face powder I used corn starch, which gave me the pallor of a corpse. Every morning I applied copious amoount fo black eyeliner to give myself the soulful eyes of a raccoon. The New Wave stylings were just a fashion statement and not lifestyle, though, and was not Emo unto themselves.
The Emo part began after a classmate killed herself one day after school by locking herself in her parent's bedroom and shooting herself with her father's hand gun. I didn't relate to my dead classmate so much as I related to her parents. I had read that the worst thing a person can go trough is the death of a child, that it was even worse than the death of a parent. I felt bad for this girl's mother, because if her grief was worse than my own, I wasn't sure how she was surviving it.
To help myself understand the whole suicide thing, I wrote a series of poems on the subject. They weren't "I want to kill myself" poems, because I didn't want to kill myself. They were first-person narratives from the view points of people who were killing themselves, stemming from my effort to make sense of their actions. There were six poems, and each narrative used a different method and had a different motivation. Because I was a quirky kid, I titled each poem with a day of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Because I was a nice kid, I added 7th poem I called "The Sabbath," which stated that suicide was a bad idea and you shouldn't do it. I called my little collection "The Days of the Weak," which I thought was enough to show my distaste for what these narratives were up to, and because 16 year olds in general are fond of self righteous word play. If I had stopped there, that would have been the end of it. But then I showed the poems to people.
"Oh my God!" the first friend to read them exclaimed, "You aren't thinking about suicide, are you?"
"Of course not," I said, "They're just poems."
When the second friend said, "Wow, these are creepy. Are you depressed?" I answered, "Not really."
When the third friend looked worried and told me that if there was anything I needed to talk about, they were there for me, I said, "Come to think of it, I have been a little down lately."
When the forth friend told me I should get help, I told them, "I guess maybe I should."
Things went downhill from there. Suddenly, I was getting attention that I had never gotten before. People were worried. An appointment with a therapist was made. For the first time in my life, I was in the spotlight. If I wasn't self destructive before, I kind of had an obligation to be now. I couldn't let all thses dear people worry for nothing. I began writing real suicide poems about how my life was a spiral of darkness and there was no reason to go on. In other words, I gave my public what they wanted.
There is nothing wrong surrounding yourself with hype, provided you know where you're going with it and you don't start believing it. I missed on both these accounts. I began carry a razor blade around with me wherever I went, in case I needed to duck off to the girl's room to slit my wrists (I never did). I learned to mope and cry at the drop of a hat. I was a very troubled little girl. I know, because everyone said so.
When I look back on it all, it occurs to me how sad it is that no one said the three words I needed to hear most. I'm not talking about I love you. I heard that plenty. What I really needed to hear from someone was, "Cut the crap." Then I needed them to walk away and ignore me. When it finally happened, it did me a world of good.
It was only when my boyfriend dumped me for a girl who wasn't always threatening to kill herself that I snapped out of it. I learned the hard way that when someone tells you that they love you, the worst thing you can say is, "No, you don't. How could you? I'm not loveable!" When you say this enough times, eventually you convince the person that they are wrong and you are right. They really do stop loving you.
In the end, I may have lost the boy, but in doing so I found myself. He dumped me just before I graduated high school. By the time I started college 5 months later, I was Emo no more. He broke my heart, and I am forever in his debt for this.
Because of that heartbreak, I grew up. I got over it. Twenty years later, my hair is still out of my face, my eyes aren't downcast, and when someone gives me a compliment I say "thank you" instead of arguing about it. My life is not a spiral of darkness, though it does have its occasional bleak moments. True, I don't get a lot of attention now that I am hype-free, but I had enough attention back then to last me a lifetime.
Watch out, Emo kids. Instead of dying before I turned 30 (or 25) like I told everyone I would, I'm now only 2 birthdays away from turning 40. I'm married to some one who adores me, and we are raising a child together. I have a full time job, I pay my taxes, I try to recycle when I can, and I smile at strangers when they great me. If you aren't careful, all this could happen to you, too.
Scary, isn't it?
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Look, Emo kids, I have some bad news and you might as well hear it from one who has been there: one of these days you are going to grow up and get over it, just like everyone is telling you to do. There's nothing you can do to stop it, unless you really do kill yourself (and you know that, despite all the talk that gets you so much attention, your heart really isn't in it, is it?).
But take comfort: there are worse things than growing up and becoming a productive member of society. For example, you could stay the way you are now. Forever. Considering how annoying you are at this point in your life, this is the worst thing that could possibly happen.
In my defense, I want to state that my fall into Emo was accidental. After my mother died during my sophomore year in high school, I was dealing with the usual teenage angzieties while while working through the stages of grief, so I had some genuine angst to lay claim to.
On a whim I jumped abord the New Wave fashion bandwagon, which innovated the bad haircuts that the Emo kids today have reclaimed as their own. I grew my bangs long so that they hang over one eye, and streaking my hair with colors like pink and blue (usually to match my outfit). The bangs alone were impressive; I went through my entire junior year of high school with no depth perception. My wardrobe staples were black leggings, big baggy shirts, and little black ankle boots. Instead of face powder I used corn starch, which gave me the pallor of a corpse. Every morning I applied copious amoount fo black eyeliner to give myself the soulful eyes of a raccoon. The New Wave stylings were just a fashion statement and not lifestyle, though, and was not Emo unto themselves.
The Emo part began after a classmate killed herself one day after school by locking herself in her parent's bedroom and shooting herself with her father's hand gun. I didn't relate to my dead classmate so much as I related to her parents. I had read that the worst thing a person can go trough is the death of a child, that it was even worse than the death of a parent. I felt bad for this girl's mother, because if her grief was worse than my own, I wasn't sure how she was surviving it.
To help myself understand the whole suicide thing, I wrote a series of poems on the subject. They weren't "I want to kill myself" poems, because I didn't want to kill myself. They were first-person narratives from the view points of people who were killing themselves, stemming from my effort to make sense of their actions. There were six poems, and each narrative used a different method and had a different motivation. Because I was a quirky kid, I titled each poem with a day of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Because I was a nice kid, I added 7th poem I called "The Sabbath," which stated that suicide was a bad idea and you shouldn't do it. I called my little collection "The Days of the Weak," which I thought was enough to show my distaste for what these narratives were up to, and because 16 year olds in general are fond of self righteous word play. If I had stopped there, that would have been the end of it. But then I showed the poems to people.
"Oh my God!" the first friend to read them exclaimed, "You aren't thinking about suicide, are you?"
"Of course not," I said, "They're just poems."
When the second friend said, "Wow, these are creepy. Are you depressed?" I answered, "Not really."
When the third friend looked worried and told me that if there was anything I needed to talk about, they were there for me, I said, "Come to think of it, I have been a little down lately."
When the forth friend told me I should get help, I told them, "I guess maybe I should."
Things went downhill from there. Suddenly, I was getting attention that I had never gotten before. People were worried. An appointment with a therapist was made. For the first time in my life, I was in the spotlight. If I wasn't self destructive before, I kind of had an obligation to be now. I couldn't let all thses dear people worry for nothing. I began writing real suicide poems about how my life was a spiral of darkness and there was no reason to go on. In other words, I gave my public what they wanted.
There is nothing wrong surrounding yourself with hype, provided you know where you're going with it and you don't start believing it. I missed on both these accounts. I began carry a razor blade around with me wherever I went, in case I needed to duck off to the girl's room to slit my wrists (I never did). I learned to mope and cry at the drop of a hat. I was a very troubled little girl. I know, because everyone said so.
When I look back on it all, it occurs to me how sad it is that no one said the three words I needed to hear most. I'm not talking about I love you. I heard that plenty. What I really needed to hear from someone was, "Cut the crap." Then I needed them to walk away and ignore me. When it finally happened, it did me a world of good.
It was only when my boyfriend dumped me for a girl who wasn't always threatening to kill herself that I snapped out of it. I learned the hard way that when someone tells you that they love you, the worst thing you can say is, "No, you don't. How could you? I'm not loveable!" When you say this enough times, eventually you convince the person that they are wrong and you are right. They really do stop loving you.
In the end, I may have lost the boy, but in doing so I found myself. He dumped me just before I graduated high school. By the time I started college 5 months later, I was Emo no more. He broke my heart, and I am forever in his debt for this.
Because of that heartbreak, I grew up. I got over it. Twenty years later, my hair is still out of my face, my eyes aren't downcast, and when someone gives me a compliment I say "thank you" instead of arguing about it. My life is not a spiral of darkness, though it does have its occasional bleak moments. True, I don't get a lot of attention now that I am hype-free, but I had enough attention back then to last me a lifetime.
Watch out, Emo kids. Instead of dying before I turned 30 (or 25) like I told everyone I would, I'm now only 2 birthdays away from turning 40. I'm married to some one who adores me, and we are raising a child together. I have a full time job, I pay my taxes, I try to recycle when I can, and I smile at strangers when they great me. If you aren't careful, all this could happen to you, too.
Scary, isn't it?
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Date: 2008-02-14 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 10:43 pm (UTC)