Letters from a Past Self, Pt. 1

Over the past few days, I've dusted off two things documenting my high school days- my senior memory book and my old prayer book.

I've been back to my old high school a few times, but I haven't looked at my senior book since I've gotten to college. I feel no ties to that place. My book was meticulously put together, filled with pictures of me and my time there, meant to be passed around so people could autograph it, since we never did get yearbooks. (I'm not even getting into that whole fiasco...) There's a picture of me as Miss LCHS (it wasn't that big a deal, frankly. It was me and one other girl running), standing awkwardly and holding a bouquet of yellow roses, half-smiling. I mean, heck, I supposedly still half liked taking pictures back then, but you sure couldn't tell from that picture... There are pictures of me as a chatty baby and a lively kid. My eyes are still bright and full of hope. In later pictures, you can tell I'm afraid to smile. In some, I pose dramatically, and you can tell I have something to prove. Pages I've written in reveal a girl who makes me cringe at how awkward and often corny she is (yes, I'm aware I'm still awkward and corny, but this is a higher plane of awkward and corny), but she's fighting- she's let everyone else decide what she likes for a couple of years, and for the past four years, she's been on a mission- now she's just going to be herself. And in all that effort, every once in a while, there's a glimmer of creativity or maturity...and I smile. There's a whole diatribe on how much I hate it when people mispronounce my name or attempt to give me nicknames (I don't really care much about that now...except when people do it to expressly screw with me). There's pictures from my brief stint in Drama Club (I was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz- pigtails and all).

And then there are the autographs. There's not that many- I was too scared to ask too many people to sign them. Ironically, I only keep up with one of these people anymore, even though some of them go to USC too. I can't even associate some names with faces, and my willful forgetting scares me a little. I used to joke how everyone said the same thing- "nice and smart". I think if I were to ask people to autograph a book for me today, it'd be pretty much the same thing. Well...there are worse things you could be called. Some things are really kind- what comes up a lot is that I didn't change to fit in, which makes me happy. I don't like to think about high school. I didn't really trust people after the crappy time I'd had in junior high, and I felt like I was always defending the things I liked, the way I was...even though it wasn't always like that. Looking back on it, I realize that my time there had an impact, even if it was just a small one, on at least one person, and I feel like I shouldn't just forget it all.

I've changed a lot these past few years at USC. But...looking at this made me realize in the end, I'm more similar to my seventeen-year-old self than I'd like to admit. If I were to be completely honest with myself, I still don't trust people the way I should. It's not like I've suddenly become secure in the stranger things I like- I've just given up trying to explain them or share them with people. I'll just brush them off with a brisk, "It's just me being Liza. You wouldn't understand," because I'm sick of people laughing and making weird faces. The only other option is to give it up, and if college has done nothing else, it has only cemented the fact that hell will freeze over before I change something about myself just because someone else has decided it's not cool or normal. I have never been ordinary, and when I try, it's a mess. I don't need any help being more awkward than I already am.

I hope that I can always live freely- as Liza, no more, no less. I'm still relearning exactly what that entails. I feel like I'm always opening my eyes a little wider, rediscovering another little part of me that I lost. I just...

I just want to be happy.