Preparation

In my home, a confine of suburbia, one of the most frequent sounds reverberating from the walls was adulation from the mouths of my parents. I was a straight A student, I never failed them, I worked hard—I was the epitome of assiduous. I was in the 3rd grade. In their minds I had an entire adverse future ahead of me, filled with grooming and preparation to become the ultimate overachiever. I was only an amicable, shy, impressionable child then. I often wonder where that child went.
     Don’t censure me—when one is force-fed ambition from an early age, one’s only instinct is to rebel. It may have had a circuitous influence on the person I am today, but I can assure you the majority of my identity is self-invented. The “go-getter” attitude forced upon me by my “loving” parents was more deleterious than anything else. My parents never fully succeeded leading me down the path I would ultimately take in life. No; my demagogue was a young girl I had an ephemeral, obsessive infatuation with my freshman year of high school.
     I spent tireless, enervating weekends writing love letters—notes that were only seen and read and produced blushes in my trashcan. My poetic skills were far more florid than any teenage boy would feel comfortable admitting—but they never seemed good enough to me. Not good enough for her. Nothing was good enough to present to her. After all, wasn’t the beret-wearing, cigarette-smoking, poetry-writing, Bob Dylan music-listening boy a hackneyed high school stereotype? In my mind it was. My girl was no hedonist…in the poetic, artistic sense. No. She wore dark, dark makeup.
     After going months without even making conscious eye contact with her, I made the impetuous decision to talk to her. An intrepid move on my part, no doubt, but completely underappreciated on her part. She saw me as part of the opulent, ostentatious, ignorant, unapproachable bourgeois. How I longed to diverge from that label. As I spoke a shaky, “hello,” her eyes never looked into mine. Her dark, dark eyes never looked my way.
     In an act of perfidious rebellion, I snuck out of the house one night, hitching a ride with an older friend of mine. He respected me—he thought I was a precocious writer—and volunteered willingly to kidnap me for the night. We drove his prosaic Hyundai to the shopping district, shadowed under the blanket of a dark, dark sky.
     The characters we saw wandering around the mall that night were shady, querulous, rancorous-looking types with spiked hair and piercings covering every inch of their bodies imaginable. After staring like an idiot for several minutes, I had to realize just how spurious their outward appearances were. Inside they were every bit as insecure, thoughtful, and love-blinded as I was.
     There was a superfluous selection of dark, dark clothing in the store to choose from. Huge, long, draping, covering. Covering. Clothes do not merely cover our bodies—they cover our identities. They make a statement to all who view us. But they can never truly say all we have in our minds and hearts. They can only cover.
     The next day, I surreptitiously changed into my new outfit once in the boy’s bathroom at school. What my parents don’t know can’t hurt them.
     My girl must have thought I was the most tenacious boy in the 9th grade; I approached her again. But through all of the dark, dark makeup and clothes, the chains, the hair dangling in my eyes, I don’t think she recognized me right away.
     Like I mentioned before, these “profound” emotions I felt were ultimately transient in nature. They didn’t last long. Not long at all. She picked up on my act the moment she realize who was hiding underneath the clothes.
     “Nice outfit,” she remarked. “My boyfriend has that shirt.”
     From that point on, I resolved to be my own person. Nothing I was not. Nothing my parents wanted me to be. Nothing merely to put on a show for some girl with dark, dark eyes. Never again would I be benevolent—I would be good. No longer would I be malicious—I would be bad. I would be my own person.