Sunday, January 23, 2005

PROM NIGHT 1971

ADDICTED TO LOVE  (part five)

The distance between the town I lived in and the city I attended High School could be measured in more than just miles. They were two different worlds. My home town being a farm community, and the city....well, Lexington is the cultural center for the central and eastern parts of the state. The kids I went to High School with were mutually exclusive from the kids in my home town. That is just the way it was back then. Before Ma Bell broke up a call to Lexington, 10 miles away, was long distance. I had a foot firmly planted in both worlds.

When school began again, I became absorbed in High School. The Dog was graduated, we were beginning to have wheels under us, we were upper classmen! This year in school things drastically changed for me. I can't tell you why, maybe it had something to do with me picking up the bad habit of smoking cigarettes. The art of smoking cigarettes without getting caught was great sport.

I found myself absorbed into a totally different crowd! The cool kids!

I was not cool. I hung around with the cool kids, but I was not cool. I had pretty low esteem regarding my looks. I was very self conscious by the fact that my left front tooth was broken and a dubious cap was in place waiting for my teeth to be "mature" enough to have a permanent replacement. I had suffered this ego destroying condition since I was 12. I felt I was unattractive for many reasons, the main one being I had no boy friend and it seemed everyone else did! I felt undesirable, unlovable and that the situation would never ever change, as long as I lived.

So many girls, myself included, allowed others to define their self worth. In high school, those "others" usually were immature males and insecure young women. I wanted to look like the models we poured over in magazines, and since I did not in any way resemble them, I felt something was lacking in me.

Look at me! Aren't I hideous?

I needed a good smack to the head back then!

 

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hideous?  Good God, you were lovely!  Low self esteem makes a person feel like that.  I remember at school how I could never be "cool" either.  But then the cool girls were the ones that eventually got into trouble. xxxxxxx

Anonymous said...

Oh, Mary! You were gorgeous! And I know you still are. Yup, I would have helped you smack yourself upside the head for thinking you are not beautiful then!!!

Anonymous said...

I am loving your entries! This stuff is great! Keep going! I want to know more about John Paul!!!

~Jaime

Anonymous said...

So adorable. What we did to ourselves as kids was rididulous. You look like the cover of a magazine and had no self esteem! Acccck!
Angela

Anonymous said...

OMG i wish I could go back in time and smack you.  BEAUTIFUL!

Anonymous said...

You DO need a smack in the head because you were not "hideous"!  You would have been one of the "pretty people" at my High School!  JAE

Anonymous said...

Holy cow... This entry could have been written by ME. Right down to the secret smoking, cool kids, low self-esteem...the whole sheebang. I had a boyfriend, but I never really felt like I deserved one. I thought there was something wrong with him for liking me. You were adorable and so was I. Ack, the wasted years! I even had a broken front tooth. Tell me your Mom broke it and I'll just faint dead away! LOL

Anonymous said...

It kills me when I look back at old pictures of myself.  I see this young hottie now, and back then, I thought I was just some freaking nightmare.  I try to remember that when I'm sixty, I'll probably feel that way about how I look now.

Anonymous said...

The dress is maybe hideous (lol)......but definitely NOT you.  

Anonymous said...

Oh Mary, I feel like I could've written this entry! I wondered WHY my boyfriend wanted to be with me, I wondered what was HIS problem!  I never felt pretty enough and had such low self esteem.  I probably could use a smack to the head myself.  Maybe we just smack each other?

Monica

Anonymous said...

Mary, I hope you're kidding with that "aren't I hideous" crack...  The first thing I thought when the picture was done downloading was, "God, she was SO pretty!"  I was never a good looking girl.  fShort, skinny, flatchested and crooked teeth...never dated in high school.  But, you know, I didn't blame my beauty or lack thereof for my dateless state.  I was just completely hopeless around boys...took the science of "shy wallflower" to a whole new level.  Lisa  :-]

Anonymous said...

'Tis but a fair an' fine lookin' colleen I see in the photograph. I meself would've been badly smitten. Perhaps I still am.

Anonymous said...

No you are not hideous!  I love all the pictures you have been posting.  Pamela

Anonymous said...

Yeah too often we let the cook kids or others define us. I wish I had not worried so much about others. Lori

Anonymous said...

Hideous, my ass!
BTW, I have that clock!
xoxo

Anonymous said...

You know, and I never once thought of it until I read this entry, I wonder how many of the kids we remember as "cool" really thought they were.  I wonder if they suffered from the very same self-esteem issues as we did.

I hung out with the "cool" crowd too -- the cheerleaders, the brains -- but I always felt at least one step below and behind them.

I wonder.

~~ jennifer, who thanks you for this entry

Anonymous said...

Look at you!

- John
(http://journals.aol.com/jryle79/Kentucky)

Anonymous said...

Hideous? Hideously crazy maybe. You were beautiful! :-) ---Robbie

Anonymous said...

You are beautiful!!! I don't think any of us realize how good we looked until after we have a few kids and middle age starts creeping up.
Ahhh...smoking to look cool....LOL! You & me both ; )

Anonymous said...

You were very pretty. I skipped my prom. I dated the same guy for years and broke up with him right before the prom. At that point I was dating an older guy who had no interest in going there. This is a great series! Nelle

Anonymous said...

aww so pretty!  I'm really enjoying this series, thank you :-)

~JerseyGirl
http://journals.aol.com/cneinhorn/WonderGirl

Anonymous said...

You were anything but hideous!  You were adorable!!  But I think we all do this.  We look at photos of ourselves when we were younger and finally see just how beautiful we really were -- if only we had known that THEN.  My guess is that one day, we'll be old and wrinkly, and we'll look at photos of ourselves TODAY and wonder why we worried about things like tiny crows feet or what we think are sagging boobs or cellulite or whatever else keeps us from seeing ourselves as beautiful.  Something about that thought makes me feel a little better about the way I look, even when I'm 5 lbs heavier than I'd like to be, or my hair needs to be cut, or whatever.  

Anonymous said...

You were beautiful! And so innocent!
V

Anonymous said...

..precious!!..E

Anonymous said...

         Mary, I admire your honesty about your feelings, but you are very pretty and talented.  You're able to craft your thoughts and feelings into something that everyone can identify with, yet you make it uniquely personal.    There's no doubt you have the gift of writing.  Now, I'm on the edge here waiting for the rest of it, so can you let us know the rest of it soon?  
         

Best wishes,
Debi