Remembering #2*

[franceslievens]

sister_luck's latest post on salon_virtuel made me realise how much I've been rewriting my own history lately. Especialy my dealings with others kids my age when a teenager, have been swallowed by the murkier mists of time. My memory, of which I have been so proud, starts to show gaps. Feelings I had, have been exagerated into clichés. There's the torment, and the unanswered love, and the lonely teenager. But I seem to have forgotten what it was really like.

Ten years ago I was what the Americans would call a senior at high school. Most of the things that went on, should be easily forgotten. Apart from the fact that your teenage years seem to be the ones that shape how you relate to others from that moment on. And it's the start of your sexual more adventurous life. sister_luck asked for the details into it, and then I suddenly realised I remembered only bits and pieces. Not that there were many happenings in the first place. I was as chaste as your everyday Joan of Arc (without the faith and the talking to god**, mind you). Having read up on the theory, I seriously lacked in the practical department.

That I remember. I remember being scared of chatting up a boy, because they all seemed to dislike me. I remember not liking the talk about sex, because I didn't have any, and all the others seemed to be so fluent in that carnal language. But what I don't recall, is actualy disliking being a little kid for so long. For that's what it felt like: not like I was missing out on something, just like still playing with dolls, while the rest is already doing the real thing.

Looking at my own young self this way, it now occurs to me that I'm not rewriting my own history as it were. Only now I'm realising again and again that what now, 10 years later, is familiar, wasn't yet familiar back then, and needed those years to grow. At 27, maybe to your surprise, I'm only a newbie when it comes to the bodily aspects of love.

*While typing in this subject-title, my computer remembered I had used it once before, hence the #2. (Which leads to question how much I need these enhancements to help me remember. I have the birthdays of most of my friends all lined up in my agenda. I've got reminders for most of my tasks. Am I still able to remember everything?)
**Unless keeping a journal can be considered talking to god. I went to church every Sunday, though. Hated it with such a vengeance, I tried to get His Lord's scorn upon me by making up erotic fantasies at mass. Whenever I stray into a church during mass, my mind still wanders to the more sexually laden corners of my thoughts.

Comments

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

I recently found out that I have been rewriting my own history - I'm not going into details here because that would betray a certain someone's trust - but I was quite shocked that I didn't remember that particular bit of my life that way.

Oh, the awkwardness of the teenage years - I was such a scary person then! I actually didn't mind it that other girls had had sex before I did - I minded that no boy seemed to like me...

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Same here. I didn't mind them having sex. I minded that no-one liked me or thought I was desirable.

I do remember finding out one time about a girl one year younger than me who'd have casual sex whenever she could. I was genuinely shocked, because she was such a studyhead and "good" girl in school. Goes to show I still had to learn many things then!

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I think rewriting our own history is something we all do, even the narrator in Proust's "A la Recherche du Temps perdu" !

We can no longer be what we were once, and we cannot recall the past without being influenced by what we are now. Past is forever lost, so rewriting it is all that we can do.

I lived in books and dreams so much when I was a teenager that I barely remember what my life was outside of them. I know I went to highschool and I have still a few friends from that time, but apart from some memories (mostly work-related)and a couple of crushes I had, it's very fuzzy. It's weird because I did have a social life and friends in Highschool, but I suppose that such stuff was of secondary importance for me and I was mostly focused on studying and on my inner world.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Of course we do, but that moment we realise it's fuzzy, is a very confrontational one. People always want to believe they are still the person they were ten years, although it isn't and will never be true.

I mainly remember not having a social life, so when my old classmates invited me for their reunion, I said no and went on with my own life.