No High School Musical for Me Post 2 of 4

Part of what I’ve been busy doing in some spare time is going to the basement with the guys to clean it out. We have moved from house to house the same junk and future projects. Well, they are all about gone now. We are preparing an area for a gym of sorts…a work out space. It’s taken a while to accomplish this. I am not sure if it is the lack of time or the dragging of the feet due to the expectation to use the gym when it is complete. It has been an adventure.

In the sorting of the mementoes and memorabilia, I found my high school yearbooks. It was great going through the fours years of haircuts, makeup and change of friends. I was lifted in my spirit as I read signatures and comments. I know many of them were standard lines, “You are fun to be with” – hmm what were we having fun doing? , “You’re sweet” – have they tasted me? Yuck! “Have a great summer” – so I guess we won’t be seeing each other over the summer? The ones I enjoyed over and over were the many “You’re pretty”. I am not “pretty” and I wouldn’t have described myself as pretty but to some guys and girls alike I was noted as pretty. Hmm! I look at the pictures and I see a girl without identity through out the years. Let me share.

As a freshman, I wanted to identify myself with my Mexican heritage. I made friends with some Mexican girls. They were into gangs and promoting the Mexican heritage. I dated a “billy bad butt” and fell in what I called love. He wasn’t all that bad but he played the part well. I wore the dark make up and blood red lips (still like red lips). I wore black and had a nickname for my girl gang members to identify me. The name I was given was “Smiley”. I didn’t last long in this group. I didn’t look Mexican and quite honestly didn’t act Mexican…at least not their kind. My skin was too light, I didn’t speak Spanish, and I didn’t share all their culture. It’s a long story why I didn’t share their culture other than traditional Mexican food. I still didn’t belong. I left my freshman year behind me without truly knowing who I was.

As a sophomore, I had one truly great friend. Her name was Delia. I loved this girl. She was quirky, fun, and normal. She dressed nice. She was happy and no real image problems. We enjoyed school together. I also had reconnected with some friends from my elementary school years. I ate lunch with a group of black friends. We laughed till our sides ached. They were so funny as many of them did impersonations from Good Times, a tv show. I don’t remember hanging out with anyone after school during this school year. I had started working for the US Air Force after school and in the summer as a civilian typist. I didn’t quite fit into any group of friends then. I was like a floater, looking for a place to land. The only common thread from my freshman year was my “billy bad butt” boyfriend who was in and out of my life.

As a Junior, I became a rocking, wild child. I met a friend who was new to our school, Lonnie. She was a hottie and smart. I wanted to be her, which was impossible because she was blond, green eyed, and model thin. We hit it off wonderfully. She and I loved our rock music, AC/DC, Journey, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, and on and on. I still pop in a Pat Benatar CD to rock out at times. I just like to relive the carefree attitude every once in a while. Shhh! don’t tell anyone. Lol! I hear AC/DC all the time from upstairs in Tim’s room. He went to an AC/DC reunion concert last fall and don’t you know an inner tug wanted to join him. My friend and I loved to sun bathe, dance, sing, and hang out with the guys. We played pool, drank beer, and smoked cigarettes. We were so cool! Yeah right! I remember one time we went camping with her parents. The campgrounds were so full that they had to park the camper outside of the campgrounds. My friend and I went to check out the fullness of the camp. Guess what? It was an all boy Boy Scout camp with high school boys! We were the only girls. We met Gary and Lyle, twins! We had fun sitting in our shorts and tube tops watching them sweat in their uniforms. The fun was ruined when our boyfriends came in their old pick up truck making a ruckus. We heard them before they entered the park. We ran back to our camp site. They picked us up and we went fishing in the dark…literally. We caught fish, sang, cooked the things, and ran back to camp before daylight. We were crazy. I had lots of what the world would call fun memories with my friend. She and I loved Friday night football games. We never watched a game but we enjoyed rum and coke by the locker rooms until we puked. My junior year was a year of body focus, and fashion consciousness, yet it was a year where my grades were the best. Go figure. I wanted to go to college and so did my friend. I am not proud of that year and I am grateful for my mom’s prayers to get me through it. My friend got pregnant in her senior year, and never made it to college. Life moved forward. I continued to work for the US Air Force.

In my senior year, I made it back to my roots. I was Anna again. I reconnected with my friends from elementary and middle school. We were education focused and we enjoyed simple, clean fun. I met 2 new friends who I became very close to. They were juniors in high school. We did sleepovers, makeovers, and other girlie things. I also had a very good male friend. He was a true friend, not a boyfriend. He and I shared life situations and he helped me understand what guys wanted in a girl and how to be true to myself. He was good looking and from a nice, Baptist, family. We never crossed the line until we graduated and we ran and hugged each other and kissed. We both immediately pulled away and apologized. It was something we promised we would never do. Our friendship remained in tack for several years after high school. My senior year was a start of a new life for me. I was turning back to God. It took several more years but it was a beginning of a new journey back to a genuine relationship with Jesus.

By now you are either begging for this post to end or you are curious why I struggled so much with identity. I was a child who was lonely in the heart. I had a mom busy being Christian and doing Christian things with Christian people. She took good care of the basics – food, clothing, and shelter. Her presence in the home was minimal at times. My dad and mom were divorced when I was 11. My dad is an alcoholic and was in and out of my life. My siblings were estranged from me because I was given charge over them too soon in my life. I didn’t get to nurture a relationship among peers but I was seen as the bad person, the sibling who was in charge. I didn’t have anyone to help me discover who I was, to affirm me, or guide me. It was a scary time.

So back to the yearbook comments. I loved reading the “you are pretty” comments because then I didn’t feel pretty or any other identity associated with a positive. I loved the comment from a respected teacher who said I would do well in college and life because I was organized and ready. I loved the comment from the football player who said he liked me but couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t go out with him. I looked him up and he his jersey number was 77 the same as my son Cory’s which he wore for 4 years. I have wonderful high school memories as well. I was a girl’s track manager. I was a mat maid for the men’s wrestling team. I wore cute half tops that said “Crunch Bunch”. I took domestic arts and failed sewing. I think that’s a fun memory because I was so bad at it. I was a class pet in Business English. I enjoyed senior picnics, dinners, and trips to Disneyland and other fun places. I didn’t go to any proms. My junior year my friend Lonnie and I spent the evening of the prom dancing to the music from a boom box in the back of a pick up in the midst of a grape vineyard. It was fun, honest! I don’t remember what I did in my Senior year during the prom. I was probably spending time with “Billy Bad Butt” who again dropped in and out of my life. He has a name but I enjoy calling him Billy. Billy had the nerve to call me 4 days before my wedding ceremony asking me to postpone it. The nerve! It probably was true love but not God’s will. I love my Kevin and have no regrets.

The basement provided this long drawn out blog post. However, I hope if you are raising girls, or have influence on a girl(s). Please help them remember or discover who they are. I had a long journey toward finding my own. It was not without joy but it could have been less ambiguous and muddled. The best description I would of loved would have been to be a “Jesus” girl.

Let’s hear it for “Atwater Falcons” “Go Atwater” "Go Class of 1982". Go Anna – fly your way to victory.

Psalm 37:23-24
The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.