Being Amber Rhea

I can hardly believe it, but it was ten years ago today that I graduated from high school.

A lot has happened in those ten years, but in some ways it still feels like yesterday. (And in other ways it feels like several lifetimes ago.)

I was going to scan and post some more photos from graduation, but the photo album they’re in is packed away in a box in one of our closets, and I didn’t feel like digging it out.

This morning I went to get my hair did at 8:00 AM. -Well, actually, my appointment was at 8:45, but Chris had an appointment at 8:00 and we went together — we’re fabulous! So anyway, the fabulous gay man I usually go to was already booked, so when I scheduled the appointment a few days ago I had to go to this other woman, the only one who was available. Turns out I went to high school with her (at Evans). She recognized me before I recognized her (probably because she was using a different name; I asked her about it and she said, “Yeah, when you start working here, if you have the same name as someone else, they make you pick another name.”) She started by asking me if I knew [name removed to protect the guilty] — and I said, “Wow… yeah, he was my boyfriend for 2 ill-advised months in 9th grade.” That’s when she told me who she was, and that was followed by a few minutes of the usual, “Ohmigod, how are you, this is so crazy…” etc. She informed me that she had kept in touch with the guy in question until a few years ago, and the last she’d heard of him, he had “come out” (”even though he still dated women, so I don’t know, maybe he’s bi or something,” she explained), was on drugs, had ripped a bunch of people off, had gotten a girl pregnant, and was “living with her in some crackhouse.” Nice!

She asked me if I kept in touch with anyone from Evans and I said just a few. I asked if she remembered Jenny, Niki, or Dipika. She said she knew their names, but that’s all. Which makes sense — they moved in entirely different circles. So anyway, I was kind of on edge throughout the entire haircut… because even as we reminisced and commiserated against the people who were the “popular” kids in high school and used to make fun of us, I was remembering that she used to make fun of me a bit. Now, let me regale you with tales of the social hierarchy at fantastic Evans High School! She was decidedly part of the so-called “freak” contingent. I was on the fringes of that group, but wasn’t cool enough (understand the extreme irony here, btw, as most of the people who were cool enough are now apparently dead or on drugs) to really be a part of it; I didn’t shop at the hip downtown stores — ok, store — or listen to music that was obscure enough…etc. I was a “poser” or whatever according to her group; I was remembering that. I was also remembering the time she ate some acid before home room and was freaking out by 3rd period. Nice.

Finally I’d gotten fed up with the complete and utter bullshit of this contrived social hierarchy, and my parents let me transfer to Augusta Prep. The rest, as they say, is history. To be fair, I probably would’ve liked Evans better during junior and senior year, taking refuge in AP classes with Jenny, Niki, Dipika, and the rest of those kind of people (uh, smart people). Still, it’s interesting how such a seemingly innocuous — friendly, even — reunion can turn a part of you right back into that awkward, depressed, self-conscious 15-year-old (and when I say you, I mean me).

Later I’ll have an amusing photo montage for you of my new haircut, before I climbed into bed and napped it all up. If I told you how long it’s taking me to do this in Photoshop, you’d laugh and call me a freak. So I won’t.

This is one of my favorite pictures of “the three musketeers”:

This was taken at my high school graduation. June 6, 1998, like the datestamp on the picture says. (I think Jenny and Niki’s graduation was a week later.) Wow… 6½ years ago. I feel old. (Yes, I am holding cash money in my left hand.)

I’m feeling retrospective (can you use that word that way?) and introspective tonight. Just felt like taking this picture out of its frame (it usually lives on my nightstand) and scanning it.

It was junior (or maybe senior) year of high school; my then-friend Christina was telling me something about her mom asking if she’d had sex yet (I think that was the scenario) and she said no, and her mom said something along the lines of, “Good, because you’re not old enough yet” and she asked, “Well, when do you think I will be old enough?” And her mom said 25. So, apparently I am now old enough to have sex. Huh.

I missed my goal of reaching my 18th birthday sans virginity (a silly, archaic word) — but only by a few weeks. He wasn’t very bright, but I was just using him for sex. “I know you’re going to be Batman.” (Jenny and Niki will get that… freakin’ hilarious.) He was probably the youngest-ever manager of a Papa John’s, though.

Maybe it’s true, what they say about “getting married too young.” I prefer not to take a stance one way or the other; I’m wary of any such over-generalizations. And the other night, Sam (I’m back into the risky business of using co-workers’ real names online) made the point that it is only very recently in our history as a society that marriage is commonly seen as something you “hold off on.” Only a few decades ago, getting married was what you did when you turned 20 or 21. Or 18 or 19. Hell, a few centuries ago, people got married at age 13 and 14. So if any time period’s an anomaly, it’s this one.

[Tangent: Not that I think that's a bad thing. Quite the contrary. I like the fact that there's not so much pressure for marriage from all sides. I guess there still is if you move in certain fundamentalist circles. But fortunately, I do not. Regardless, though, society does much prefer couples to singles. Scoff if you will; I might've (stupidly) scoffed at such an observation when I was ½ of a couple. But I see now that it's true.]

I don’t have any regrets, though. I think back, and really, I can’t see how things could have happened any other way. “Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.” Ahh, my show tunes. And for the most part, I’m pretty damn happy in this, the now.

At the risk of sounding like the end of one of Ken’s (shout-out!) blog entries: Most of you don’t know what this is all about anyway.