My Awkward Years

Blooming into the young, delicate flower I am today did not happen over night. Actually, if my looks were a flower, they’d be one of those rare species that gardeners love to nurture for years and year and years just so that they can peak for about five minutes before they decompose.

The awkward years span from third grade to my second year in college (which for those of us keeping score, means now). In family sitcoms or in the case of 99% of the human population, the awkward years only span a few months or a few years. A few pimples here, a little frizzy hair, and then magically, the kid’s got straight teeth, a nice, cancun tan, and that skinny, bony frame is just a blip in the scrapbook. But not me. Oh no. I was blessed with thick, uncontrollable dark hair, pale, pale skin, and a fast metabolism that means any chance of some nice boobs are so out of the question. 

Third grade was one of the roughest years. A combination of a poor hair dresser and a mother who thought a short haircut would be cute, led to a boy type hair cut on my dainty head. It was not cute. It was not even cute in that “aww, cute kid with a crappy haircut” way. I’ve hid most of the pictures. I only use them now to reference “The Beginning of the Awkward Phase.” 

Being all legs and constantly tripping over myself and flat ground was especially amusing during fourth and fifth grade. I even got braces, the first girl in my grade, which made me especially cute. Being that I hit 5′5” in fifth grade, clothes were also a bit of an issue. My poor mother tried, but nothing really fit that was modest enough for an oversized ten year old to wear. Anything that did fit was made for teenagers in their Britney Spear’s phases and everything that was modest enough to cover the midriff of a ten year old, could not cover my midriff due to the fact that I was, in fact, a ten year old giant.

Junior high was a little better, but my parents are republicans, so I wasn’t allowed to dress like a slut. Unfortunately, dressing like a slut was kind of the trend when I was fourteen, so I was mainly awkward because I was not allowed to look like a young hooker. 

In high school, I finally began to go lose some of the awkward stuff. Because I finally stopped growing, my parents felt comfortable shelling out the dough to buy me pants that did not look like I was preparing for a flood. Indeed, being skinny was no longer embarrassing, but kind of nice. The pale skin was still an issue, but modern technology at least allowed the frizzy mess of fuzz on my head to fall down my shoulders in nice, straight lines. 

Of course, I still could not control my body. I tripped over just about everything, including lines on the basketball court or just myself. My reactions were a bit delayed, which meant in volleyball practice, it wasn’t uncommon for me to be hit in the face. Or to hit myself in the face. I have a lot of limbs and they’re pretty hard to control. So, I often ended up with punctures to my face that I had to create stories for just so I wouldn’t make a fool out of myself when people questioned why in fact, I had a two inch gash on my nose (went to raise my hand, accidentally hit myself in the face).

I have discovered that awkwardness is directly proportional to how comfortable you feel about yourself. So, things got pretty awkward my freshman year in college when I wasn’t too pleased with my life. My curly hair began to take over my life and I stopped wearing make up. Not that make up is necessary to be pretty (I still rarely wear it), I just find that make up is one of those things that just makes you feel better about how you look. 

If my awkwardness was a graph, I would say I am on the descend. I mean, I’ve still got probably another year until I stop dropping my computer on my face (yes, that happened) or stop tripping in high heels (that happened two weeks ago!). Indeed, my pale skin is still pale–although, now I say it is fair and being conscious of skin cancer is almost kind of hip, so I just say that I’m watching out for melanoma. No one can badger a girl for avoiding cancer, can they?

My Big Year

So, I just finished my first year at MSU. Which in reality, finishing a year of college is not a huge deal, but for me, finishing a year of college and not wanting to transfer my butt out of college is kind of a big deal. I not only finished a year of college, but I liked it. Sure, sure, there were some academics involved, but let me walk you through some life milestones I accomplished this year that Michigan Maggie would be so proud of me for:

1. I did  laundry

And I did a lot of it. I’ve gone through THREE boxes of tide. Which I buy on sale, thankyouverymuch I didn’t do a single load of laundry all through my freshman year of college. I always brought it home, where my mother, attempting to have me not hate my life, would graciously do it for me. But now, every two weeks, when I run out of panties and jeans, I do three loads of laundry (two dark, one white). It takes about four hours. Clearly, my housekeeping skills are out of control and if college doesn’t work out, I can start my own laundry business. 

2. I moved in with pretty much a stranger

and I love her! My roommate is amazing, which is amazing because I talked to her maybe three times before we decided we’d contraction-ally obligate ourselves to be friends for the year. I like her so much we’re moving in together again in August. But perhaps more noteably, I am not a total slob around her. My bathroom, at this very moment, is clean. My bedroom’s even pretty clean. The common areas? CLEAN! God, I’m growing up so fast.

3. I made some new best friends

And some aren’t from my hometown. And some are. But the point is, I made new friends. I’m not very good at making friends. I’m a little (okay, waaaay) sarcastic. So forcing conversation until people decide they like me is weird for me. Especially when it comes to making female friends because batting your eyelashes just doesn’t seem to work as well on them. But hey, I tamed the beast that is my awkwardness around strangers and forced my friendship upon many. The result? Nearly a 100 new facebook friends. Impressed? I figured as much.

4. I made time for fun

Perhaps you see this as a simple accomplishment, but the thing is, when I want to do well in something, I tend to do only that. Like, I get obsessed. So when I wanted to kick some Wolverine butt last year at Michigan, I just you know, decided the library was the only place I would reside until I did just that. Which I did, but I had about 2% of my daily fun needed to be happy. This year, I made myself go out and enjoy being a college kid, even if I knew that I had a test in a couple weeks that needed flashcards made. Okay, so sometimes I still stayed in and made those flashcards. But hey, if I did, I totally had HBO on the tv. So that makes me exciting, okay?

5. I’m going to ROMA!

Look, I don’t do things by myself. Ever. I hate being the awkward person in the room that no one knows and I hate not knowing anyone. So, like any introvert would do, I just signed up to go to Rome for five weeks with 20 strangers to attend a university with 5,000 strangers. Oh yeah, and I don’t speak Italian. This is a recipe for disaster, of course. But, I also very firmly believe that this is the only time I’m ever going to be forced to rely completely on myself. Which will be totally fine, because I can do laundry.

These are some of my accomplishments, but the list keeps going. Some of them are things I’m not comfortable sharing with the interwebs and parentals that like to keep a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with me and some are just a little not that impressive to outsiders (like, are you really interested to know that I discovered the perfect way to curl hair using dual curling irons? yeah, i figured not so much). Some are more important to my parents than to me (wooooo, the girl doesn’t need eighteen doctors!!!) and some are more important to me than to my parents (wooooo, the girl finally got a job she doesn’t despise). 

I’ve heard your twenties are for growing. Which makes sense, because my wants and needs of just a year ago are nothing like what I want and need now. A year ago, I was shaking in my boots, wondering if MSU would even accept me after applying so late. Now, I start summer classes at MSU in the morning because I like it so much, I’m not even demanding summer break (although it would be nice, don’t take that the wrong way).

I guess the bottom line is that coming into your own is a long process and sometimes it’s hard and just complicated, because the path you’re on usually doesn’t have a map. It’s just kind of woods and leaves and branches, and every person has to take their machete and chop down their path. My path sucks sometimes. It’s going to suck tomorrow, when I walk into my first day of calculus and don’t remember even how to turn on my calculator (is it second on? Second on to turn it off? Oh sheesh). But, paths go places, right? That’s their whole point. So, I guess tomorrow I start going somewhere. I’m pretty sure Michigan Maggie would like that.