[LSPoorEeyorick]

Wow, fun - I was just about to post a similar thread based on a recent Pop Candy thread, where a high school freshman girl asked blogger Whitney Matheson (and her fans) for advice on how to get through high school. I've posted there but I can't yet tell if my comment is being reviewed or the internet dingoes ate my brain-baby.

The biggest change for me came between the start of freshman year (in middle school) and the end of sophomore year (my first in high school.) Middle school was a quest to 'fit in,' to climb a social ladder and be one of the popular people. Never mind that the popular people were actually pretty dull, less than creative, and didn't share my interests. But they were popular.

A little time on that path showed me that the road to popularity is clogged with sheep, all looking to be as conformed as possible to whomever made the style rules – the prom queens, the queen bees, the bee-more-like-me types. And the only way these sheep stepped out of line was to undermine any creative thought. In retrospect, I think their actions had far more to do with wanting to have the "upper hand," make someone else look bad in order to look cooler, to make sure their own deviations and missteps went unnoticed.

Somewhere along the way, my creative thought became far more important to me than the sheep who were trying to suppress it. I quit being a pom-pon girl. I became passionate about theater. I watched movies obsessively. I practiced piano and saxophone endlessly. I danced in my basement, where nobody was watching. And then I danced with other actors in a summer production of Oklahoma! And then, my new theater and band/orchestra friends and I danced in front of lockers, and in pep rallies, and in parking lots, to music that other people didn't know (sometimes that other people couldn't hear – or imagine.) When other people wouldn't dance. Even when other people made fun of us for dancing. We didn't care, though. We were dancing, and singing, and laughing, and supporting each other, and the sheeple no longer mattered. I'm still in contact – pre-Facebook, even – with most of those friends. We don't see each other as often, but whenever we do, it's as though not a single day has passed.

Between those two school years, I met the boy who became my first boyfriend. Though we eventually grew apart a few years later, I don't give him as much credit as I should for introducing me to musical theater, and essentially, changing my life. I'm very happy that today, he's doing the same thing for his theater students back in our home state. But with him, I learned how (and how not) to have a relationship. We shared interests, sure. But I was self-conscious, a little selfish. He was a little selfish too. We were children, really, and I'd been programmed to imagine that the "happily ever after" came as soon as you kissed that first frog. This is rarely the case, especially when the very young are in love and yet very immature. The difference I see in me today, when it comes to love, is that I understand you have to meet just the right person at just the right time – and then, you have to communicate, you have to compromise, you have to be willing to give of yourself more than you're willing to take. And if your partner is also willing, and you both put in the effort, love can be more than a shallow dream, it can be a reality full of depth and power. I'd like to take a moment to thank Jeff, for breaking up with me all those years ago. It made possible the relationship with my husband, which humbles me daily. It made possible Jeff's brand-new baby boy.

My tastes have changed somewhat. I grew up in a smallish town in Michigan, and not a huge amount of variety was available for a girl who wore a size 16. So as the towns I lived in got bigger and bigger (literally – from Midland to Ann Arbor to Indianapolis to Washington DC to Los Angeles) I got more and more excited about expressing my creativity in a way that had been previously unavailable to me. Clothing. Accessories. Furniture. Living spaces. Not a lot of variety was available from big-box chain stores. Big-box restaurants, too. I went from youth without any ethnic food, to the occasional Chinese, to trying to explore all of the cultures and flavors I could get my hands on. And once I got to Los Angeles, I hit the jackpot. Any kind of culture, museum, food, shopping… in the realm of possibility. And the plus-sized clothes. Oh, the plus-sized clothes! The siren call of vintage Los Angeles swept over me, and suddenly I was wearing interesting dresses, admiring antique jewelry, adding an unusual scarf here and there… I feel much more comfortable and confident in a unique or unusual outfit that fits me well than I do in anything else. And what matters to me most is that I like it, that I feel good. Others may roll their eyes at my choices - quite honestly, I don't know, and quite honestly, I don't care. I'm happy with my own sense of style.

A marked difference between then and now is my willingness to put myself out there. In high school, I wasn't afraid to try out for anything, give anything a shot. Then, and again in college, I was productive, downright prolific. I directed. I wrote. I went right up to the people in charge and said, "hey, I've got an idea." These days, though I do have the semi-valid excuse of having a busy job, I've got lots of ideas but I'm not working on them often enough, and I'm definitely not seeking out the people who can help me make it happen. Now and then I have a breakthrough. I might've had one recently, even. But I could benefit from taking a risk as easily as I did in high school.

I've got a lot more to learn. I was on my honeymoon during my 10th, but I hope that by the time my 20th comes along, I can look back at today and see all the ways I've grown and change. And my 30th… and my 40th… and my 50th…