In other news, I think my closet has reached its carrying capacity for new items - not that I've bought much in the past few months, but I've found myself much more interested in... sartorial introspection than in looking at what other people are wearing, which actually surprises me because usually by this time of year I'm clamoring for SHINY NEW! I guess it has to do with wanting the 90s back (and already having it packed away in boxes somewhere).
This isn't news, but Carrie is awesome.
Dress: thrifted and hemmed. (Chopped and screwed.) Thermal: department store. Tights: generic. Payless: Oxfords.W1L 004: Write one leaf about listening. Or write one leaf about being heard.
This is a lightly edited version of the original response I wrote for this prompt.
When I was in high school, all I wanted was to be heard. Listen to what I have to say! Take me seriously! I’m going to talk over you so I can get my point across! And I wanted to be heard in every way. I’d go into my closet every night and pick out clothes that said Look at me! Look at how fearless I am! Look at how impossible I am to copy! And I would wear ugly clothes that nobody else my age would ever consider wearing, because nobody else my age would ever consider wearing them. Thank God for drama classes.
High school drama classes are full of those kids who are all shouting LOOK AT ME! I’M SPECIAL! I’M AWESOME! And in a room full of shouting kids, I found that I had to shout really loudly to be heard.
MS. BOOKWALTER, LOOK AT ME! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO! That’s wonderful, Samantha. NO, NO, BUT CHECK THIS OUT, TOO! I AM SO MULTI-TALENTED! Yes you are, Samantha. PLEASE REAFFIRM MY SELF-WORTH! WHAT, SAMANTHA? I CAN’T HEAR YOU! THE OTHER KIDS ARE SHOUTING TOO LOUDLY. I SAID PLEASE REAFFIRM – YOU’RE BREAKING UP! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!
So I tried to Shout! on paper, in words, occasionally with capslock, as a playwright, all over the giant stage my amateur theater group managed to rent every summer. And it wasn’t enough. So I tried to Shout! online by blogging, broadcasting my incomparably important message to those still ignorant of my greatness – the millions of internet users who hadn’t and never would read my blog. And it wasn’t enough. So I yelled at my mom, which was dumb, because she has perfectly good hearing, and she yelled at me for yelling, which wasn’t really what I wanted. So I tried to make my transcript look like it was shouting. My counselor said that they couldn’t print special copies with capslock just for my college applications, so I aimed for getting lots of A’s to SHOUT! for me, since A’s are louder than B’s, C’s, and D’s (too curvy and soft), and F’s are loud, but in a bad way, like a drunken, slightly racist relative at Thanksgiving.
In the end, my transcript yelled loudly enough for me to get into all the not-particularly-ambitious schools I applied for, including UCLA (always shouting, desperate for attention) and UC Berkeley (who obviously wants to shout but has enough self-control that it has grown out of its childish tendency and tapered off into a dignified lowercase).
But now I’m in college, my transcript doesn’t know why it is yelling anymore, the roomful of yelling people are still yelling, but for whose benefit, I don’t know, the people who are already listening don’t need to be yelled at, and my loudest clothes are too too small to fit over my big head.
Maybe I am tired of yelling. Or maybe I just need to find somewhere else to Shout!
Post a Comment