On Excavating One's Own Past
Jun. 15th, 2018 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caitriSo a few weeks ago my Mom called to say she was downsizing and if I Really Wanted My Grandfather's Furniture I needed to hurry up and come to GA. Well it turns out that with three weeks' notice a flight to GA and a three day (eighteen hours' each) drive back with a Uhaul was Just Not Gonna Happen, but luckily I found a managable moving company that dropped off a "Relocube" and then picked it up again, and it arrived yesterday.
In addition to the furniture, Mom had packed a bunch of truly random boxings of my belongings, many of which I had forgotten about. There was a box of miscellaneous papers that included my first attempt at a fanzine (two typed pages with "news" about the "new Star Trek movie" eg. Generations and the current arc of the X-Men comics, plus what passed for witticisms about my teachers and classmates--I note that one teacher "finally" learned to say my name right, but damn if I can remember how he was mispronouncing it. "Cathern" maybe?), a handwritten draft of a short story, a bunch of Star Trek magazines, and so on. Also a jewelry box that holds several shiny keychains and buttons (I was such a magpie), some pieces of kiddie jewelry I remember from when I was very little (a little ring with a cat-face on it, a glittery unicorn pendant), and several metal pins that were awards of some kind that I don't remember at all; one for "English," one for "Essay," and one for "Science."
Anyway, it made me muse on how much, in a way, I ~haven't~ changed since I was a young teenager. I still love Star Trek and X-Men and spend a lot of time (maybe even more??) writing and sharing fannish news and musings about them--except I have more friends to talk about them with, even if I've never met most of them! Serious study/academics still matters to me--maybe even more so. Like, hello doctoral study and so on. There's something about that bitty little "Essay" pin that's so homely and cute I kinda want to show it to my dissertation chair for, like, proxy academic momma pride or something absurd like that.
I was so lonely as a young teenager. I was also stubborn af, which...actually ended up working out pretty well for me. I wish I could send a letter back in time and tell bb!me something like, "I know you're lonely and everyone thinks you're weird, but in 24 years you're going to be someone that people take seriously, who gets published A LOT, and who has a lot of people Who Genuinely Give A Shit About You." Wouldn't that be great?
In addition to the furniture, Mom had packed a bunch of truly random boxings of my belongings, many of which I had forgotten about. There was a box of miscellaneous papers that included my first attempt at a fanzine (two typed pages with "news" about the "new Star Trek movie" eg. Generations and the current arc of the X-Men comics, plus what passed for witticisms about my teachers and classmates--I note that one teacher "finally" learned to say my name right, but damn if I can remember how he was mispronouncing it. "Cathern" maybe?), a handwritten draft of a short story, a bunch of Star Trek magazines, and so on. Also a jewelry box that holds several shiny keychains and buttons (I was such a magpie), some pieces of kiddie jewelry I remember from when I was very little (a little ring with a cat-face on it, a glittery unicorn pendant), and several metal pins that were awards of some kind that I don't remember at all; one for "English," one for "Essay," and one for "Science."
Anyway, it made me muse on how much, in a way, I ~haven't~ changed since I was a young teenager. I still love Star Trek and X-Men and spend a lot of time (maybe even more??) writing and sharing fannish news and musings about them--except I have more friends to talk about them with, even if I've never met most of them! Serious study/academics still matters to me--maybe even more so. Like, hello doctoral study and so on. There's something about that bitty little "Essay" pin that's so homely and cute I kinda want to show it to my dissertation chair for, like, proxy academic momma pride or something absurd like that.
I was so lonely as a young teenager. I was also stubborn af, which...actually ended up working out pretty well for me. I wish I could send a letter back in time and tell bb!me something like, "I know you're lonely and everyone thinks you're weird, but in 24 years you're going to be someone that people take seriously, who gets published A LOT, and who has a lot of people Who Genuinely Give A Shit About You." Wouldn't that be great?
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-16 06:32 pm (UTC)