I was on the cusp of seventeen when I met my first boyfriend. I remember getting ready to go to a New Year's Eve party. I spent extra time getting ready, applying my frosted metallic brown makeup and matching nail polish. I did my hair, that year for a Christmas gift my father had spent $75.00 on a spiral perm (a fortune at the time.) I went to the closet and picked out my Buffalo jeans, my plum blouse with the military buttons, and my ankle booties. I felt pretty, and I hoped the boy I liked would notice me. He did, and we've been together ever since. It's been twenty years, and I love him more today than ever.
Having a boyfriend, a person who thought the world of me, changed how I felt about myself. His love for me made me realize that perhaps I was lovable. When John and I were seventeen, we would spend hours on the phone each night. Because we went to different high schools, we had our own space, with stories to share with each other at night. Neither one of us had our licence and so we only saw each other once a week, usually Wednesdays and on the weekends with our group of friends. That all changed when John got his licence and bought his first car, a 1981 gold Chevette. After that, we saw each other more. We would drive around, listening to Nirvana, Guns n' Roses and Van Halen. Or we would just stay home, hang out and listen to Lenny Kravitz.
As important as my relationship with my boyfriend was to me when I was seventeen, so were my group of friends. There were four of us. At lunch time, Amanda would drive us in her dad's big black Cadillac to one of our houses. There we would cook up Kraft Dinner, chicken strips, or chocolate chip muffins for lunch. We would put on our parents old ABBA records (totally not cool, but fun) and we would dance and sing. The four of us laughed a lot. That's not to say that there wasn't some drama with the four of us, but overall, there was enough respect between us to make it work.
My parents had split up when I was fifteen, and I lived with my father and brother. Their separation was hard on me, and looking back probably harder than I realized. My mom fell in love with another tman. Her new relationship was abusive. I struggled with how she could leave us and not her new boyfriend. I remember my Dad and I fighting often over chores and what my responsibilities were. It was hard for me to balance being a child with trying to keep the house and family together. Seventeen is also the year that I became an aunt. My sister, two years older than myself, gave birth to her son.
As many sweet memories I have of seventeen, there was also a dark side. By the end of seventeen, I fell into a dark depression. John was there for me, and for that I am eternally grateful. School became harder and harder for me, and soon after, I made the decision to drop out. Part of me wishes that I could have stuck it out, but I know that my journey and the lessons I needed to learn took me on a different path.
I would tell my seventeen year old self to give herself more credit. She is doing the best she can and learning along the way.
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