Rebel Rebel

Whenever I trade stories with friends about our high school years, I can't help but feel like I did adolescence wrong.  I didn't drink.  I didn't smoke.  I didn't do any drugs.  I didn't go to wild parties.  I didn't even date.

This is what high school looked like for everyone else, right?

I don't have a single fun anecdote about the horrible, potentially life-threatening bull-shit I pulled as a teenager. 

Whenever I start to think back to those days, it always occurs to me that I never really rebelled against my parents about anything.  And then it occurs to me that I never really had anything to rebel against because they didn't really set any rules to break.

I didn't have a set curfew.  There were no restrictions on who I could hang out with or where I could go.

I didn't even have a pager.

That being said, I never really stayed out late.  My friends were all honor students and we only ever hung out at each others' houses. 

This line of thinking always brings up in my mind a chicken/egg scenario.  Did I not rebel because I had no rules to rebel against or did my parents not institute any rules because I was such a well-behaved angel?

I was grounded once and only once, that I can recall.  This was back when there were such things as video stores (yes, actual VHS tapes) and I worked at one.  It was called Blockbuster if I remember correctly. 

Simpler times.

For whatever reason, my coworkers and I were forced to stay late closing the store and decided to go to IHOP after.  I was out until 5am.  My parents were waiting for me in the living room when I got home.  

At this point, and only at this point, did it occur to me that I should maybe not have done that.  I was so unfamiliar with the concept of acting out that I didn't even realize that I had done it.

So then I was grounded.  It is only the fact that I was grounded that I remember and not what being grounded actually felt like because I'm pretty sure a grounding was a punishment that was wasted on me.

Grounding me only meant that I had a valid excuse to avoid situations that could trigger my intense social anxiety.

"But Mooooom, I need to go sit in a corner, not drinking, scrutinizing everything I've said to everyone all night and hoping no one makes me the center of attention!!  This is so unfair!"

"I can't believe you're making me stay home and watch this episode of The X-Files that I've been looking forward to all week instead of spending time with a bunch of my peers who intimidate and frighten me!!"

So do I Mulder, so do I.

The only times I can remember expressly going against what my parents wanted were times when they wanted me to be active and I wanted to be a pathetic hermit. 

The best example I can think of would be the time we went on vacation to Yellowstone National Park.  In one of my proudest, most surly moments I refused to go hiking with my family so that I could spend the entire day in our hotel, watching a Real World marathon.

In my defense, we did not have cable at home so this could have been my only chance.

My family has always been pretty active and healthy.  (My father hikes over a mountain to get to work in the morning. It's insane.)

Also, I like spending time with my family.  They're cool.  So what the hell is a teenage girl to do?

Be as lazy and anti-social as possible apparently. (By now you may have detected that this is a major theme in my writings...)

So this brings up another interesting question...

Did I actually rebel by being lazy?

Or was I just too lazy to rebel?

Either way I'm going to go ahead and blame my parents.