My favorite (only) niece, Mary, starts
high school this week, and, besides making me contemplate Botox, this has prompted
an interesting discussion between my older brother, Damien, and I. He wants to
know if I "discovered" myself in high school; if I consider myself to
be the same person. "Because I'm totally
different" he mused. "In high school, I didn't want to make any waves.
My number one priority was to make sure no one noticed me - I wish I could go
back and tell myself not to be scared..."
That was not my experience. I
wasn't scared or particularly insecure in high school, I was just incredibly
high strung. If I could sit down for an Awful Awful with 1991
Heidi I would tell her to chill out, stop putting so much pressure on herself
and, for god's sake, blow off your homework for a night, onebadgradeisnotgoingtokillyou.
I was not very relaxed in high school.
Correction: I was not relaxed, at all, period. A typical day at Saint Mary
Academy began at 7:30am, before homeroom, when I would cram CliffsNotes, drill
Biology flashcards and fret with my fellow over-achievers over whether Sister
Sylvia might give us a pop quiz in World Civilization that afternoon. From
there, I was launched into a full load of Honors courses, taking a pass for
some if I needed to conduct a Peer Counseling session or give a campus tour as
part of my Ambassador duties. As soon as the final bell rang, I would make a
mad dash to one of several after school meetings (cooking crepes with the French
Club? Signing petitions for Amnesty International?), many of which I had to cut
short so that I could do a quick change out of my uniform and eat a soggy
brown-bag turkey sandwich before bolting to the auditorium for a four -hour theatre
rehearsal. I was rarely home before 10pm and my mother, with her infinite
patience, would often stay up until 1am with me, pecking away at our electric
typewriter as I dictated English essays. Most nights I fell asleep with an open textbook on my pillow.
And that was just school. Outside
of the Academy, I stacked my days with voice, piano and dance lessons, rehearsals
for professional theatre productions, shifts at a local soup kitchen and a
part-time job at Marshalls. Just recounting this schedule exhausts me and I
remember it like it was yesterday. The urgency. The constant worry that I could
(should) be doing more to challenge
myself, milk opportunity, be better than the person next to me,
excel, excel, excel.
Which is to say that I am exactly
the same person I was in high school.
Eighteen years later, I've made a
conscious effort to lighten up and I am considerably less anxious. But the
yearning still exists. The restlessness to achieve, the impatience with
structure and limitations, the fear of falling short of expectations - it's all there, only
now it's more complicated because I don't compare myself on a high school
scale, I compare myself on a human scale. Am I fulfilling my intellectual potential?
Am I lifting up my community? Am I a supportive enough daughter/ sister/ employee/
friend? It sounds miserable but it's really not. I find it exhilarating. Keeping the bar just out of
reach means I'm in a constant state of pursuit, perpetual motion, and that, to
me, is what being fully alive is all about.
But of course, I could still
stand to chill out a little bit. So I will share with Mary the same sermon that 2030 Heidi will probably want to extend to me:
Relax. Have fun. None of the pressures around you are terribly important in the big scheme of things. That said, do take pride in your work. Be kind to people. Respect yourself. Don't drink and drive, don't let your friends drink and drive, don't do anything you wouldn't want showing up in a Google search and make sure to sneak out of the house once in a while.
Also, drink a mocha Awful Awful
for me because I'm craving one now and it's driving me batty.
And don't tell your Dad I said to
sneak out of the house.
