How to Crush Without Being Crushed

High school is a tumultuous time for most people.

Hormones are doing nasty things to our insides and outsides. Social pressures are forcing us to make choices that seem so much bigger than they are. Our very minds consipire to cause us problems trying to reconcile new ideas, strange interactions and the pop culture “standards” we’ve been fed our entire lives.

It can really suck.

And for me, it did.

You couldn’t pay me to go back and re-live those four years. When I graduated, I was happier to be done with that place and time than I ever was for anything else.

It would be years before I put enough distance between the person I was then and the one I had grown in to and was able to even remember half the good stuff that had gone on.

I never had a Winnie Cooper or a Watts. I was more Cunningham than Fonzereli. I most certainly wasn’t as lucky as Lloyd Dobbler.

What I was, was some strange and confused embryonic form of who I am now. A lot has changed–so much that the “me” from back then wouldn’t even be able to imagine the person I am now as a possibility.

Anyone who’s still the same person they were in high school has serious problems. It means they haven’t grown, haven’t learned anything new about themselves, and are probably stuck in very unhealthy relationship patterns–both intrapersonally and interpersonally. High school, at best, helps set the baseline for who we were and plants the seeds for who we can become.

What we do with those seeds, how far we rise from that baseline (or sink below it), is up to us. It’s what happens when we really get out on our own, when we decide which influences we’re going to accept and which we’re going to shrug off as unimportant or detrimental.

At it’s worst, high school lets us know exactly what we don’t want to be part of. It stings us so badly and disgusts us so much that we seek to turn our backs on it as useless and horrid. Even at its most horrid, though, it serves as an inspiration–a motivator to ensure we never go back to anything resembling that state of development.

High school is part of the baggage we carry with us into every relationship. For some, it’s a small tote and for others it’s a steamer trunk or three. It’s part of what either held us back or spurred us forward along the path to who we are now. It’s part of the last bit of generally shared experience for most Americans… something that we can all talk about together and be able to compare notes.

Love it or hate it, high school is part of who we are.

And it’s one of the biggest reasons I write about what I do.

Tags: growth, high school, relationships

As muddled as my mind was for most of high school, some things began to become clear during those years.

First and foremost, the idea that, among my peers, I was actually a worthwhile person began to creep in. That was mostly due to finally shedding the destructive crush of years prior and finding the wonderful support of a small handful of people who let me have a positive impact on their lives.

Yes, it’s true that unlike a lot of other people I know, I had (and have) a very supportive family. But in those teen years, especially for someone like me, that doesn’t count for much inside one’s head. In fact, I still don’t think that, no matter how meticulously I try to explain things, my parents even come close to understanding where I’m coming from half the time. Back in high school, there was no way you could have convinced me they would. But they were always there and they did do a damn fine job of laying some positive groundwork for me to (eventually) build on.

What mattered most was the people I spent half my day surrounded by. My classmates. The same people I’d spent the previous three years with. The same people who were mostly indifferent toward me–which was an improvement over the previous years. That bit of indifference, while painful and confusing at the time, turned out to be a fantastic asset in the realm of self-discovery.

With no one to talk to most of the time, I had a lot of time for introspection. As an extra added bonus, because I was often ignored by those around me, I got to see sides of people they didn’t often bring out in public. Mostly because they had apparently just forgotten I was in the same room. Other times, because I stood mostly outside of any given social circle, people would confide in me, knowing that their secrets were safe.

These factors came together to give me a much more well-rounded picture of my peers than most others ever had. I could see the strange interplay among and within the different groups. I learned where people became boisterous or sullen to cover up self-doubt, how  they deflected attention from certain areas of their lives they didn’t want to share with the world.

I had a front row seat to the back-stage of high school life.

Try as I might, though, it was still difficult to apply that same point of view to my own issues.

As time went on, I did get better at it. Running through scenarios in my head, taking note of my own fears and hopes, trying to overcome my shortcomings. It was a rough process–and one that wouldn’t even be close to finished until my second year of college (and that just opened up a new level of things to work on).

There were crushes and clumsy attempts at relationships–romantic and platonic. More often than not, I just sat back and watched and learned.

The most important thing I learned was that, no matter what, I was most certainly no worse off than anyone else. I had things to offer–ideas, poetry, insight–that really could change people’s lives.

Even if it was only for an instant.

Tags: growth, high school, introspection

All of our past is viewed through the filter of our present.

That filter is imperfect.

Memories fade and change in unknown ways. They blend together and are reinterpreted every time we visit them. Through repitition, some bits become more vivid than other–regardless of their accuracy.

This is all doubly true when our emotional lives are involved.

Every relationship we’ve ever been in or wanted to be in swirl about us. Some shine brighter than anything else. Others leave us with cold shivers of pain or the blank void of depression.

None of it happened the way we remember.

Not exactly.

Love–that strange and undefined thing that drives us in our quest to be happy without ourselves and in the arms of others–knows no logic.

Yet our logical minds can influence it. We can choose our actions–resist obviously detrimental urges or give in and ride the lightning of wild emotion.

All of it spins together into a collage that approximates the objective reality of it all.

With changes in ourselves, our view of that collage changes. Parts that were hidden, come into view. Parts that seemed important, fade into obscurity. The overall feeling of it can change.

Underneath it all, though, one thing remains true: something happened. Something that changed us on a deep level. That helped shape who we are today.

And will continue to influence who we are tomorrow.

This is why I revel so much in rehashing past relationship. It offers insight into how I’ve grown. More importantly, it brings out the story tellers in other people and helps flesh out the tales, helping us all see how we’e all grown.

Today is Valentine’s Day–a holiday rife with fictionalized Romance and high-falutin’ expectations that are almost never quite met exactly. Through the filter of memory, as the years pass, those currently precieved failures may become successes–painful building blocks that set the stage for so many better things.

Wild emotion, tamed by reason and catalyzed by time.

This is the recipe for all of our lives.

You get out a product of what you put in and what other people add in to your experiences.

Do your best to add the best to the lives of those around you.

That’s the Love that really matters.

Today or any other day.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Tags: emotions, growth, history, holidays, lessons, relationships, valentinesday

When exploring, there are two main things you need: a starting point and a rough idea of what you’re looking to do.

The starting point gives you somewhere to gauge how far you’ve gone. It gives you an anchor point and, in a worst case scenario, a port of sorts to return to.

The rough idea of what you’re looking for gives you the reason to leave that port in the first place. For explorers of old, like Magellan and Columbus, that rough idea was “I want to see what else is out there (and maybe make some cash finding better ways around).” So they set sail into uncharted waters and, along the way, charted them.

While doing that they pushed the limits of reason, of the technology of the time and of themselves and their crew. Some of those limits expanded more easily than others when hit, some of them more painfully and with greater repercussions. Everyone involved–and, soon enough, all of the world–ended up with different limits. And all of those limits were farther from the starting point than when they started.

In our own lives, we all develop limits. There is only so far we comfortably stray from our safe ports–be they physical or mental–before turning around and coming back. Rarely do most venture out in to the uncharted territories, those places on the map labeled only “Here there be dragons.”

But if you’re really interested in growing, in learning about yourself and, ultimately, building better relationships, you have to venture into those dark waters.

Before you do that it helps to know the same two things any other explorer should know: where you’re starting and what you’re hoping to accomplish.

Without the proper preparation, you have little point of reference and may find yourself going endlessly in circles. If you lose sight of where you started, you run deeper and farther into dangerous places that you’re not quite ready for.

The first rule is “Know thyself.”

That is your starting point.

Your goal? Know thyself better.

Yes, that’s a broad and some would say easily achievable goal.

After all, everything we do can teach us a little more about ourselves, right?

Yes, anything can… but most of us don’t bother to learn like that. We learn best when put in more extreme situations.

We discover the most about ourselves when we push ourselves (or, in some cases, are pushed) to our current personal limits. One nudge beyond that, one step over that line we could see so clearly from where we once stood, and we are out of our comfort zone and in completely new territory.

Once you’re in that new space, you may find it’s not as bad as you imagined. More importantly, you’ll have not only learned something about yourself, you’ll have tested that knowledge and taken action with it.

The second rule is: Knowledge that is not tested, is not proven.

When exploring your own personal limits, engage in deep thinking and thought experiments. Role play different scenarios, either alone or with trusted friends. Discuss things. But, when given the chance, act on what you know.

You will, without a doubt, discover some limits that you can’t–or won’t choose to–push. That’s OK. Those are important limits. They mark end points, and end points can be almost as important as yours tarting point. The more you find, the better defined your map of yourself becomes.

But if endpoints are important, why not choose one from the beginning? Why not work toward a specific goal instead of the more general one?

You can do that.

In doing so, though, you run the risk of forgetting to pay attention to the journey and the opportunities it provides. By going after one goal, you may miss out on other, unexpected and equally important discoveries.

No matter what, you will end up in a different place from where you began–a new starting point for your next adventure in self exploration.

Tags: growth, limits, self exploration