reflections on my angsty preteen years, or how life is a series of adjustments

I never intended to use medium as a journal, but apparently that’s what I’m doing, so.

Recently, my mom and I started digging through some old stuff. I was actually trying to find elementary school journals, but I have yet to find those. What I did find was a wide array of…literally everything but that.

I learned recently that I peaked in 5th grade. Let me backtrack, though.

I had an average childhood, except for the fact that my parents and I moved around a lot. I was born in New York, had a brief stint in Indiana, then moved out to California at the ripe old age of 3.5. I started preschool as a lonely kid who had left my best friend behind. I told everyone who would listen that I had thousands of siblings that my family and I left behind (I think I also told them I was from Minnesota, which is weird and inaccurate, but anyway) and that I had a bunch of imaginary siblings remaining. One of my earliest childhood memories is when they would let us out of the preschool classroom based on categories.

“Okay, you can leave if you…are wearing blue!”

“Stand up if you have brown hair!”

et cetera. Well, at one point, we were heading out for the day, and they said:

“You can leave if you have brothers or sisters…[yung el], imaginary ones don’t count!”

Caught.

Anyway. I went to kindergarten, finally started thriving. I was still a young, anxious child (I didn’t have words for that, though — I just knew that I didn’t like to play tag because I felt like I was being chased) but I was otherwise doing alright. I was making friends in grand fashion. That’s not to say that I didn’t make friends in preschool — one of them is still one of my closest friends to this day — but I definitely sped up in kindergarten and onwards.

That brings us to the time when I peaked in 5th grade.

I had a teacher who loved me (even though she called me out for not paying attention, yet still knowing the answers) and friends who went along with my weird shenanigans. I got everyone into ghosts and psychics (I touched on that in another article), and all writings from that time period seem to be full of self-confidence, almost arrogance. By all accounts, 5th grade seemed to be the best year of my life. I was full of hope for the future. I was starting middle school the next year.

And then we moved when I was in 6th grade.

I consciously made an effort to reinvent myself with this move. I was going to start wearing darker colors. I was going to be more mysterious, whatever that meant. I don’t know why, but these were things I was determined to do.

Couple that with

  • awful acne (seriously the worst)
  • serious undiagnosed depression and anxiety (definitely not aided by the intense flood of hormones I experienced during this time)

and

  • a fledgling interest in rock music

and

  • an EXTREMELY obsessive personality

and you got 6th-7th grade me, the angstiest kid on the playground.

I literally hated everyone. I thought I was really special and unique, but I also thought I was “going insane”. Most of my journal entries from around that time center on System of a Down, delusions, trees, mushrooms, paranoia, depression, anger, apple pie, lawn gnomes, cheese, and how unfair my parents were. I was making up words like “peoplenessies” and insisting that I was Armenian (I’m probably the least Armenian person out there). I was alternately going by “Shavo” or “Shadow” or “Shade”.

I was also totally queer but entirely in denial because non-straightness wasn’t acceptable in my household.

I was a fucking monster.

This phase continued for way too long, honestly. Throughout high school, I was getting into heavier shit, like black metal. By the time I started college, I was even listening to NSBM, the all-time Worst Genre for a multitude of reasons.

In my journal entries from 5th grade, I was convinced I was going to get married, live in a haunted house, and live to be 127. In middle and high school, I was convinced I wouldn’t live past 18. I was literally hiding and terrified on my 18th birthday, then surprised that I was still around afterwards. I don’t even really remember why at this point. All I know is that things have been strange since then.

You know how, whenever a cat runs out of the house, it kind of pauses and looks around wide-eyed like,

“I didn’t expect to make it this far. What now?!”

I’m like that literally every day.

I didn’t really plan for college. I didn’t really plan for a career. In 5th grade, I wanted to be a psychic or an “accurate astrologer”. But in high school, I had literally no idea. I still kind of don’t.

I’ve made peace with some things. My parents and I mostly get along now, and I’m a far happier person than I used to be. But sometimes, when I look back, it’s surreal to

a. have been that person

and

b. have survived this long, despite being that person.

)
exercises: the early years

Written by

tales from a boy who can only learn the hard way

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