The Truth About Seventeen

There’s a depressing song by Janis Ian about a seventeen-year-old ugly duckling girl who spends weekend nights at home alone instead of out on dates with cute boys. I remember, in high school, telling my mom that the song made me think of myself. My mom proceeded to break down and cry because it devastated her to hear that I felt ugly and unpopular. I. Was. Fat. In. High. School. The four years of unrequited crushes racking up on my nonexistent scorecard equaled four years of my mom telling me that boys would like me if I would just lose weight. I was never asked to prom or homecoming. Did it break my heart? Sure. Does it matter now? No. (Well, maybe.) But to this day, I wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t have been so truthful with my mom in that moment. I could’ve just changed the station on the radio and moved on.

I always tried to speak my truth in high school. I don’t know if it was because I was too young to realize that sometimes it’s best to keep your opinions to yourself or if it was that speaking my truth was the only way I knew how to operate. I was suspended for two issues of my high school newspaper for speaking my truth in saying that I thought the infamous ‘80s “Just Say No!” campaign was a total waste of time because high school kids just snickered and thought it was dorky. Can I reiterate what I’m saying here? I was suspended from my high school newspaper for having an opinion. In a pro/con editorial piece. Ironically, a couple of years later when I was applying for a writing fellowship, my English teacher wrote in her recommendation letter that the thing that made my writing stand out was that I always told the truth, not caring what others thought. She noted that this showed a sense of maturity usually lacking in high school students.

There’s so much talk about how teenagers fuck up so much because the rational-decision-making part of their brain hasn’t fully developed. For sure, I had poor judgment on many occasions in high school, but did the fact that I spoke my truth when I wrote stem from poor judgment or a lack of maturity? All I know is that when I wrote, I found a creative place where I didn’t worry about who what why where or when I offended.

Speaking my truth is something that, as an adult, I find harder and harder to do. I often censor my Facebook posts lest I offend a family member or someone I haven’t spoken to since elementary school 30 years ago. But the one place that I find I can always speak my truth is in my fiction. Ah, the irony. I don’t hold back. I don’t worry about what someone is going to think if I write about a 15-year-old girl losing her virginity or a boy who doesn’t believe in God or a high schooler being bullied. Because how can one, as a writer, truly find success without truth? The moment you stop being truthful about what the world really is, is the moment you stop being a writer.

So that’s what I will challenge myself to do here as I tell my stories on Young Adultish: speak my truth. Follow along, if you want.


© Copyright 2012  Marisa Reichardt. All Rights Reserved