My Awkward Decade: How yearbook and choir changed my life

Last week, a former professor and (I like to think) friend of mine shared a video of 500+ Kentucky high school choir kids making the United States's national anthem ring through the open space of a hotel lobby and shared that choir and journalism were what kept him interested in high school.  And so I got to thinking.  Similar things kept me interested in high school.  Similar things keep me going now.  And, as that professor/friend of mine so wisely noted, that rendition of our national anthem is "a testament to the power of the arts."

There are some things you should know about me in my high school years.  Things about me that I didn't want.

I didn't want to move to Illinois in 7th grade.  After two years in school in Crete, I didn't want to go to the high school I graduated from.  I didn't want to be there.  I didn't want to try anymore.  I didn't like myself.  I didn't know what was coming.

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You see, most of us - and most kids we know - go through what are commonly called "awkward years."  I had an awkward decade.  No, seriously.  I went from ages eleven to twenty-two without looking back from the awkward.  It started with looking terrible in polo shirts as school uniforms, which was exacerbated by the terrible hair cut I was forced to get because my pre-pubescent oiliness manifested in both zits and - BONUS - oily hair.  This morphed further upon our move, when I discovered that my fashion sense was even worse without the shield of a uniform shirt for school.  Maybe this wouldn't have been so bad, but my schoolmates all had parents with a closer investment in their fashion - and more money to spend on it.  When we moved to Crete, I didn't have a pair of shoes that fit properly; I'd been wearing sandals the latter half of the summer.  We bought a pair and I learned that here in the Midwest, I needed a special pair to wear in the gym.  These same shoes were not to be worn outside.  At all.  I looked ridiculous.  And though I knew it, there was little I could do about it.  For a long while, I was a fashion victim.  I also had little in common with my peers, being a public school kid who'd never memorized portions of Luther's Catechism, having divorced parents, and having been exposed to other points of view.

Basically my life, but I didn't cry in front of people then.
Suffering in silence is unbearable.  Find someone you trust.
Talk to your kids without judgment.  Be the change.
It all sounds cheesey, but you need to do it.  Please!

Then, at some point, we got a bit more on our feet, but I had no clue how to dress myself.  I became accustomed to finding quirky pieces to deflect from how I looked overall.  I had friends who attempted to help me match, but I said I liked dressing the way I did.  That wasn't true at all, but I felt as though I had no way of looking good.  And now you're thinking to yourself, "Looks aren't everything."  No, you're right, they're not.  But in high school, they are something, especially if you have some major confidence issues and are the heaviest girl in the class to compound the problem.

Freshman year was pure torture.  The summer before, I developed a fledgling eating disorder, which I stifled with - what else? - more food and packed on the unhealthily lost weight.  Within a few weeks of the start of classes, I heard there was a spot open for my school's show choir.  This, you need to understand, was the only thing I thought I might enjoy about high school.  I tried out.  I didn't make it.  I'm fairly sure I skipped more school that year than I did throughout the rest of my education through high school and both colleges.  I didn't do anything.  I just didn't want to be there.  My writing did well, but I didn't find any joy in my studies, which was strange.  My grades suffered.  I fell asleep in religion class.  I disappointed a friend with my depression.  People reached out, but I didn't want to be gotten.  I yelled at some senior girls from my basketball team in the locker room because they were being unfair and I was frustrated, though I knew they were trying to help me.  Things were not good.  The bright spot?  I ran the fastest mile I have in all my life - 7 minutes, something.  The looks on my teacher's face and those of my classmates was beyond satisfying.

Sophomore year wasn't looking much better.  I had tried out for show choir at the end of freshman year and had failed again.  My locker between two guys who always took gym and refused to wash their gym uniforms, so my stuff reeked.  Within those first few weeks, I noticed the yearbook sign up sheet and that a new teacher was taking the post.  Because I enjoyed writing and photography, I decided to give it a shot.  Having somewhere to go during the last period of the day, a place that wasn't a study hall full of students who didn't want to be there, was wonderful.  I found a niche.  I was good at writing and editing others' work.  I could design unique pages and quickly caught on to the design software and the style we were striving for!  I copied inspirational designs with ease, learned to manipulate images a bit to do what I needed to with them, and felt satisfied with something on a regular basis.  I started to make more friends and to get closer to my classmates - it only took three and a half years (sarcasm intended)!  Still, I observed more than I experienced.  I was in the regular high school choir that year, so I got to sing and I even got to sing different parts, switching from second soprano to first alto midway through the year.  My little cousin was born on my sixteenth birthday.  Nana was diagnosed with cancer again and it became apparent we'd be moving back into my great aunts' house.

"Third time's the charm," she said quietly as I rushed to get my books together at my stinky locker.  I was also scarfing down my breakfast because, as ever, I was late.

Cav Singers at Choral Fest 2005
I'm on the far left.  Barney Stinson's Cheerleader  Effect is
in full swing here.  I didn't normally blend so well!

I made it into show choir for my junior year, and if you got in once, I knew you was fairly guaranteed to be in my senior year, too!  After a really good summer that included an escape from my everyday by going to Yellowstone, hanging out with and getting a lot closer to a family that took me into their hearts, and moving back in with my great aunts', I settled into junior year, a bit more the "me" you know today, but still lacking anything resembling unshakable confidence.  Cavalier Singers added to the insanity of what was known as the hardest year at my high school.  Almost as soon as it began, we'd picked a song to perform for the WELS National Choral Fest - 500+ kids, by the way - to be at Martin Luther College in New Ulm, Minnesota.  This performance, mind you, was for our bodies as well as our voices.  A dance number.

And my friend Carly partnered me up with this guy whose voice had sent chills through my spine from the first day we warmed up as a group.

Cue the extra awkward.  I couldn't talk to this guy, let alone look at him straight on.  But I was crushing on him so hard it was unbearable not to communicate at all with him.  Thankfully for me, the world of social media - then, in the form of MySpace - was upon us.  We MySpace messaged quite often.  I think it started off teasing each other about our horrible dancing "abilities" and determining whether or not we had morning practice the next day.  I can't remember.  I suppose it doesn't matter.  But we learned this dance to "Puttin' on the Ritz" and got to the point of being able to do it - both shaking with nerves - and not tripping one another or hitting each other with our PVC canes.  I was the last person on the bus home from Choral Fest - have I mentioned my perpetual lateness?  When I got on, the only seat left was next to him.  I felt the thrill I always felt when I knew we'd be near each other - a mixture of paralyzing fear and extraordinary excitement - and marched myself down the aisle and sat without a word.  The nine hour journey home was an odd one, but for the first time, we talked.  In the form of remarks about other passengers' shortcomings, idiocies, and how much they bothered us, but it counts!  We cast sidelong glances and I ended up flirting with someone from the other choir on the bus.  I tried to get him to help with my physics homework, but he refused, playing dumb, though he was in honors physics.  He sang Irish drinking songs to me softly.

On the way to Prom 2006
I'm the one awkwardly reaching across in the back.
I can't tell you why, though I remember
thinking it made sense at the time.

Things seemed to be going well until the middle of December, when he asked out one of my closest friends and the guy I'd been flirting with also admitted to being interested in another girl.  Around the same time, Nana's health took a sharp turn for the worse.  My insomnia became more intense and more logical.  My studies suffered a bit.  I didn't feel like I had the energy to do it all.  But I still MySpaced with the guy from time to time, avoiding my heartbreak.  I wore blue patent heels on game days.  I wrote nice things on yearbook pages, wrote papers about how I couldn't concentrate, and put a pixel of ever color swatch available for our school's first full-color yearbook on its opening page.  My Dad moved across the country to live with us and to help out.  Things were more insane than ever.  And April 2006 was the hardest month of my life.  When Nana passed away, I felt many of the things I expect people experiencing their first loss experience, but I didn't want to talk about it any more than I wanted to have it happen.  Prom was the first weekend of May and I went with a bunch of friends in a limo and with a classmate "as friends."  In that limo was the boy whose voice gave me chills.  He - and a number of my closest friends - graduated later that month.

Oh, unrequited love, you cruel mistress!

Senior year rolled around and at that point, it was apparent that all that mattered to me was, indeed, yearbook and Cavalier Singers.  I did my best in basketball, as always, but my complete lack of traditional athletic ability once again surged to the forefront as I was the only senior on the team not made captain, though we had three - the two other seniors and a junior.  That stung.  That year, really, was probably the smoothest year.  Though many friends were away at school, I had some solid ones nearby and made some new ones.  By this time, my formerly fellow Cav Singer and I had progressed to AOL Instant Messaging - we in the know called it "AIM" - and emailing.  I graduated, wrote some beautiful things about my time there on some key yearbook pages, and was glad to be done.

A picture from around the time
I was accepted to Berea

Then on to college and more of the same, but with less care.  I didn't care so much what people thought of me.  I was fine with being who or whatever they perceived me to be - for better or for worse.  This let me not try.  Fantastic, right?  A bit freeing, maybe, but I was still holding myself back.  By the time I got to Berea, however, I'd spent a bit of time learning how to make myself look good.  How to dress, how to do my makeup nicely, how to smile at the right time.  And around that same time, someone noticed.

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So, as usual after reading one of my ranty posts, I bet you're wondering why that all matters so much to me.  Why do three years of yearbook and two years of show choir hold such a place in my heart?

Let's start with what came first.

Yearbook served as an outlet for the creativity I - still - so easily forget I possess when I fail to use it.  I found a way to write about people other than myself.  I learned to constructively criticize my colleagues' writing.  I worked to create pages and designs that I could see in my head.  I made the computer my friend for more than just messing around online and playing with words.  I grew up a lot in that room.  When I write today, I can't help but think of my time in that Spanish classroom, struggling to make something that made me proud and feeling like I fit in.

Show choir has been a major force in my life, as well, though it may be more accurate to name "music" as that force.  All my life, I've loved church for the music.  I've listened to whatever's on the radio.  If I like an artist, I listen to every song on their album and have to listen to each and every word.  This is a bit maddening for people I'm with, as I cannot be disturbed while the artist is imparting his or her or their wisdom.  But moreover, show choir made me feel like a part of a larger whole - whether the Lutheran high school choir kids throughout the school, the nation, the region or all singers everywhere.  I feel a kinship with song.

There are things I fear I'll never be able to do with total confidence, but I've come a long way.  For example, although I have a job writing now, I fear looking like an idiot in my polo shirt and often feel like I don't know how to dress myself.  I become self-conscious of the way I look, stumble over my words, and sometimes forget what I'm doing.  I have daily struggles, but I also have daily wins and a kitten who gets excited by water and human food.  And Kitten Chow.  And his humans returning home.

And do you know what?

Every day, I get to feel those chills go through my spine when I hear that boy from Cav Singers sing and hum.  That boy helped me through the roughest times in my life so far.  He told me that my beliefs are what matter to my life.  He taught me that I am worth something.  He treated me well.  He became my best friend through years of typing back and forth.  We worked hard on talking to each other.  We're honest.  We're nearly inseparable.  I suppose I should call that boy a man now.  We're married, after all!

I started out quite awkward around this one.  Thankfully, that's faded now.  =)

Marriage Day.  The only awkwardness
came from some of the hilarious poses.

And all from a bit of show choir, a heckuva crush, a lot of hours in front of a computer screen, a lot of unforeseen undercurrents, and whole lot of love.


Side note:
Happy Valentine's Day to all of you out there!  Whether you're celebrating with someone you love romantically, your family, a dear friend, or alone, please be sure to eat enough (the amount differs for each of us) chocolate, sip a little wine (if your old enough and take a sip now and again), and remember the meaning of love, the unforeseen goings on in your life, and pray for a more loving tomorrow for us all.  There are a lot of things that get lost in the shuffle of life and too often we forget our hopes, dreams, and earnest prayers for peace, enduring love, and a bright tomorrow.  Let's not allow that to happen!

Tom tucked me in before work this morning,
so I woke up instead to my little Valentine!
Happy Valentine's Day from Fox the Cat!