maturity.

Josh and I are talking to Evan, who is a nice enough person, but has a bit of a different view of the world from my own. We're talking about high school, or rather Josh and I are talking about how lame we personally were in high school. I've found that one of the downsides to being a writer is that you leave all this evidence of who you used to be, and I've never been particularly impressed with the girl whose journals are in my closet. She was always focused on the wrong things, and she had some pretty stupid ideas about the world. Basically, she was a silly high school kid, and while she probably wasn't terrible for her age, I don't exactly poll high school kids on the big life questions.

Evan listens to all this and says, "Really? I was pretty cool in high school. I had a bunch of friends."

Josh and I look a little confused, then realize that we're just not explaining ourselves properly. I clarify, "Well, it's not that we didn't have friends, but they were just stupid high school kids, too."

"Oh, no, I had a lot of older friends who were in college and stuff."

"Well, no, I mean that in high school, everybody cared about a lot of petty stuff. And they thought they knew what was going on, but they really didn't."

"Nah, I was cool in high school." Evans assures me with jovial confidence.

At this point, I give up. For me, the concept of being embarrassed by who you used to be is so part of my being that its nonexistence in someone else completely doesn't register. It occurs to me that once again, I might be in a minority on this one. Was I the only dumb kid in high school? Crap.

Later that night, I was still wondering just how weird I was and decided to poll Josh. "Hey, did you think that conversation with Evan was kinda strange today? Like, that he didn't feel sort of embarrassed about what a stupid high school kid that he used to be?"

Thankfully, Josh agrees that Evan's view is totally crazy, at least to him. The good thing about Josh is not that he helps me be less crazy, but that he is crazy with me, which is really what I want in a boyfriend. So maybe Evan is in the majority, but at least I've got a buddy.

To me, Evan's view indicates that he hasn't grown up enough in the years since graduating. If you still have the same value system that you held when you were sixteen (really think hard about the person you were at sixteen, if you can stand it), then something is really, really wrong. If you can't look back at your former self and think about what an idiot you used to be, then chances are, you're still that idiot. Granted, I used to be an idiot, and I continue to be an idiot, but I am a completely different kind of idiot. I make completely different mistakes than the ones I did in high school. That's maturity, folks.

I have a love/hate relationship with my former self. She did and said and thought a bunch of stupid crap, but she was doing the best she could. I try to live up to what she wanted to be (sometimes - she wanted to be some silly stuff, too). I've always been pretty content with who I am, and so if that other girl had to exist to get me here, then I am okay with that. Recognizing and embracing your past shortcomings is part of growing as a person, and it's a cycle that should continue until the day you're too dead to make any new mistakes. In a few years, I'll want to deny ever being the twenty-four-year-old that wrote these words. Man, was she ever a moron at life.

She's still better than that high school chick.