DIARY OF A PREPPY EMO TEEN
What the heck is preppy emo? Someone who looks a certain way but feels another? Possibly. I never would have considered this term back then. Largely because it didn’t exist. I didn’t know how to describe myself.
I went to a private girls school where we all appeared to be preppy. We wore uniforms and colorful scrunchies. I was in the choir and tried out for cheerleader. But I was different in my room at night. That was when I could be honest with myself about all of the emotions I was feeling.
High school is hard for everyone. No matter how it appears. I was a lot more fortunate than so many other people my age. That made me feel guilty about having any kind of sad feelings. What right did I have to be sad? My parents weren’t divorced, we lived in a nice house, and I was receiving a top-notch education. I had no right to feel anything but grateful.
When you’re wrestling with your own feelings as a teenager, it can feel pretty isolating. No one knows what you’re really going through. I was dealing with feeling misplaced. I was adopted into this wonderful family and it was hard to carve out a spot for myself that didn’t feel forced or like I was obligated to behave a certain way. All my natural instincts were against me. I didn’t fit.
There was no one around me who could understand how that felt. My parents had two other biological children. They all looked alike and had similar interests. I looked completely different. My personality was different. The things I was interested in were different and the way I expressed myself was definitely different. See how many times I used the word “different”?
I was also different from my classmates. They had all mostly grown up together. I came from a school where I only had eight girls in my class. All of a sudden I was in a class of almost one hundred girls. I had not grown up on one of the mountains where the affluent families lived. I had grown up in a nice neighborhood to be sure but when you’re dealing with high school cliques, I didn’t make the cut. It was hard to make friends. My anxiety (my mother called it shyness then) made it even more challenging.
The only place I could be myself was in my journal. My diary didn’t judge me. It only listened. And I poured my heart out almost every night. It was during high school when I really began writing. I wrote short stories or little quotes and I started writing poetry. The very first poem I ever wrote was in 1995 when I was seventeen. I called it “Rage”.
“Tonight I can’t sleep.
My mind is trying to depress me.
A sea of emotion closed
to the outside world rose
in a hurricane inside my head.
Everything around me
turned dark.
I am not my cheerful self.
I long to have someone to hold,
but I don’t.
I long to have someone listen,
but they can’t.
My world is empty.
A silent scream only I can hear.
All I have are 5 cigarettes
and my music.
The outside world is asleep.
No one can hear me.
Don’t think I’m crazy
because I’m not -
only hurting.
Despair & loneliness cry out -
You need someone!
No I don’t -
I am independent.
All I need
is me.
But it fights me...”
I had no idea what I was doing or if I was using the proper technique. But that didn’t matter. I was writing for myself and no one else. The words flowed out of me and hit the paper however they needed to. That’s why writing is so cathartic.
Now that I’m an aspiring novelist, I get to say things through my characters. They bring to life different aspects of my own personality. They experience people and places that I might not ever get to see. And, best of all, they have closure and healing in the end.
Life is difficult for everyone and you may not always know what someone is going through. Always be kind. And if you’re struggling through something, I encourage you to write about it. It’s more healing than you know. Take a pen and let the words flow.
All my love to you,
Anna Kat