Teenage Supervision : Teenage Diaries

Teenage Supervision // By Sunny Keller

I wish I could say I was involved in a tragic car crash and needed emergency brain surgery. I wish I could say I was bitten by a radioactive spider that gave me supervision. Any excuse sounds better than what I consider as my life changing moment; the day a new lens formed around my eyes and I began to see things differently. Things that were once so jubilant and full of life became translucent. I saw the grime, insecurity, and hidden pain in everyone and everything. I gained this “superpower” in the most pathetic way possible; being dumped by my first boyfriend.

The beginning of freshman year was picture perfect. I had a solid group of girl friends and was excited to take on the cliche challenges of teen hood. When I was asked out by the dreamy long-necked bleach-blonde boy, I thought everything was going according to plan. He held my hand at a high school football game once, so naturally I believed I was in love. A month into the relationship he took me aside and said,

“It’s not you, it’s me.” ....and that was that. I was angry and broken. My naive heart didn’t understand this kind of betrayal. From then on, I only thought pessimistically. I didn’t believe anyone else’s happiness was real or anyone’s sadness was valid. I truly could not comprehend what I was feeling. I didn’t know where to put all of this confusion and teenage angst, so I opened a notebook and started writing. I wrote everything that popped into my brain from whacky rhymes to sappy love letters. I jotted down scenarios I randomly thought of and deep dark opinions I had about other people. Writing things down made sense of the jumbled mess in my mind. It felt as though I had the

answers to everything in a personalized book. My journal became my outlet and my best friend. Even though it helped me cope and let my oppressed thoughts be free, it still didn’t keep me from being negative.

I would like to say my “teenage awakening” made me more mature than my fellow peers, but this sense of superiority started to take a toll on my relationships. I was not able to connect with the happy-go-lucky popular girls who were once my friends. (When I talk about radioactive-spider-supervision, this is what I mean.) I started to see truth, and truth isn’t usually pretty. Behind the shimmer on their eyelids and concealer on their foreheads, I saw these girls’ evil intentions and the hidden insecurities that made them who they were. They talked smack about people they had never even conversed with and bragged about upperclassmen who waved at them once. Because they were transparent in my eyes, they became scared of me. It was as though I stripped them naked and exposed them with one glance. (Catch me in the new Marvelmovie.) They knew my game as soon as I started eating lunch somewhere else, and they would stop at nothing to make sure no one saw what I saw. They wanted to cut me down until I had no choice but to kiss their feet. Their method of destructive resorted to borderline bullying.

I was reprimanded for everything I did even when it didn’t involve them. Sure, I made a few mistakes, but of course, another person’s struggle was equivalent to reality television. They waited for drama like spiders in a web. They sat in their beautiful glistening abode all day until a little fly accidentally wandered into their trap. Then they would suck all the blood and happiness out for their own entertainment and leave it to die. A harsh analogy, I’m aware, but extremely accurate. I was once that fly, but I escaped because I knew who I was and what I was worth.

Throughout this torment, I still had my journal. I took the random written ideas on tearstained pages and began creating films and music that depicted what I was feeling. I came to the conclusion that all artists had to suffer in some way to make meaningful art, and when you are proud of that art, the hardships become worth it. Since then, I have had a little more heartbreak and a little more doubt that anything left in the world is good or beautiful, but I am continuously proved wrong by what I can create out of it. Maybe my bleach-blonde boy experience was not really my life changing moment. Maybe that was just the year I matured. Or, maybe it really was a radioactive spider.