underdogs

I recently went to a scholarship dinner for my alma mater, a very popular & increasingly prestigious Orthodox Jewish high school. I, on the other hand, was anything but popular & prestigious back in my teen years. Oy, my freshman year was just brutal. I entered that school knowing almost no one. I was surrounded by cliques of life long gum-chomping friends who knitted kippot for scads of nameless boys who were invariably giggled about between gum chomps. Like a scared monkey in a frightening psychological experiment, I clung to whomever would talk to me. I had maybe 4 friends that year, failed miserably (who fails enthusiastically??) in most of my classes and contemplated transferring to a public school every day (as if that wouldn’t be more brutal??!).

Somehow I survived that year, and came back as a sophmore who just didn’t give a sh*t. I wore chains. Fishnet gloves. Black hiking boots. Obscure band t-shirts. I dressed like a punk rocker. I wanted to exude a tough and unapproachable façade (think Judd Nelson’s character from the Breakfast Club but much cuter). My daily mantra was: Screw you all, you conformists, you idiots who blindly buy your clothes from The Gap. Stay on your side of the hall with the rest of the sheep and no one will get hurt.

But I hurt.

I smugly viewed everyone as a sad failure of society. It hid my pain of feeling alone. Of feeling different. I WAS different. I was shy, very creative, undisciplined in my studies, a child of divorce, and lacking any self-esteem. Many years later, I realized that many of the popular students that I idealized from afar were more screwed up than I was. This gives my 14 year old self no comfort. I wish I had more guidance and joy back then. Someone to show me the way. Those waters were treacherous.

As I sat at the scholarship banquet, enjoying my dinner with some of my alumni (the ones I liked back then J), a video presentation was shown of the fine work the school is doing. Many picture-perfect perky students excelling at math, science and Torah (oh yeah, that!) were interviewed. It’s a great marketing tool, and it even made me want to whip out my checkbook.

But I wanted to see the video they DIDN’T show. Pan the camera left, away from Ms. Teen USA, away from AP-Calculus broad, away from Benneton boy, and PUH-leeze far far away from the gum-chompers, and you will see my teen world. The underbelly. The have-potential-but-lacking-motivation-junior- college-bound crew. It may not bring in the heavy donors, but I’m rooting for them.