I love this thread! I love hearing who you all were!
I was uprooted from a happy hippy life in the Oregon woods and had good friends at middle school there. Strange family circumstances changed everything and I was forced to start my freshman year of high school in Southern California. I was a fish out of water and was not the person I wanted to be. (This is VERY weird for me to think about now. There is absolutely no way current me would be happy living in the woods of Oregon, much as I still love the place.)
I was uncool, but I wished I wasn’t. I had a small friend group. None of them were cool either, but one was a very good looking girl and by association, that made me not a total loser. However, there was a small group of “cool” guys who liked to tease me. Some might call it bullying these days, but I’m not sure it went that far. Many years later, one of those guys is now a FB friend and apologized to me.
I did a couple of awkward and dumb teen things that weren’t very nice, but it stemmed from being awkward and dumb, rather than mean. The one regret was dumping a guy in front of everyone after we went to homecoming together. I did it to be cool and it was wrong. I should find him and apologize.
I didn’t enjoy high school. Almost no sporting events. Never been to a class reunion. I did enjoy learning. I enjoyed all of my classes, except for anything to do with math. I was a good student, but totally unmotivated and got occasional B and C grades. I had no goals and a family situation that was very unsupportive. Not blaming them. I just had no clue about where life would take me and no interest in “going away to college.”
I went to CC and have no regrets about that though, because I think it was ultimately instrumental in how my life has turned out. After a lot of time-wasting, getting put on academic probation at CC, dropping classes and repeating classes, I transferred to CSULB and did study abroad, which completely transformed my life.
It would have been nice to have had a better experience in high school, but I wonder even today how my life would have been different if I had been a popular kid. In the early 80’s, I found my personality. I was very much an uber-80’s new wave girl. No Debbie Gibson for me, haha. Give me Depeche Mode and Echo and the Bunnymen any day.
@tamagotchi I relate to you entirely.