I was just scrolling through Facebook and I saw a photo of this really unfortunate-looking girl, and I was like “Jesus, that girl’s awkwardness is giving me second-hand 80’s nostalgia-shame from when I was that age and had the same-OHMYGOD THAT’S ME.” Because apparently my cousin Joycie decided to upload old family pictures.
So this me, age almost 14, between my sister and cousin:
Let’s break this picture down, shall we?:
1. Those glasses were so big they literally end beneath my nostrils. It’s like someone made a scuba mask but forgot the nosepiece. Luckily my eyes continued to worsen so I got to pick out new glasses the next year. I got the exact same enormous glasses but with bright red frames because that’s how Sally Jesse Rafael did it.
2. You know what smells like teen spirit? Me either, but I bet it’s the opposite of a baby-blue, high-necked sweater with kitties on it.
3. I paid to have my hair look like that. It was an eight dollar Ogilvie home perm but my mom didn’t do the bangs because we ran out of perm solution. It smelled so bad I had to burn my pajamas later. I don’t know if there’s a name for this particular hairstyle but there should be. It’s as if a drunken poodle impregnated a mullet. A “poollet”, perhaps? Or maybe a “moodle”. Either way, I’m wearing that poollet -moodle with motherfuckin’ panache, y’all. And by “panache” I mean “quiet, unrefined desperation.”
4. I’m playing dominos. On purpose.
5. Over my left shoulder? Velvet painting of Jesus at the last supper. Also, what seems to be the visible stench of my fake Debbie Gibson perfume, or possibly The Ghost of Christmas Past asking future-me what the hell I was thinking wearing culottes with a sweater.
Honestly, it’s like I mugged an elderly librarian and then took over her life. At first I was going to claim this wasn’t even me but my sister had already tagged me on Facebook while laughing hysterically. Of course, she’s wearing a shirt with Pooh all over it so she’s really not in a position to talk. Frankly, it’s almost like I was trying to look terrible. Like Terry Richardson, but less pedophiley.
The good thing though is that pictures of you at your most awkward are always helpful to give you perspective for when you think you’re currently too fat or too old or too skinny or too whatever. You can keep those horrid pictures to remind yourself that you probably look better now than you did during those uncomfortable, adolescent years when you didn’t know how to wear your face right, and your body was rebelling against you in every possible way, and you had no clue who you were or what to wear or which terrible fluid was going to start leaking out of you next. And that’s a good thing. And that’s why I’m keeping this picture and it’s also why you need to not delete those awkward photos of your own children. Print that shit out, y’all. Hide it in a book. Then when they’re grown and get dumped and eat too much ice cream and tell you they feel ugly you can pull out those pictures and let them see just how far they’ve come.
It’s all about perspective, you guys.
PS. Many of you are insane and have expressed an interest in my blue cat sweater. It has gone to bad clothes heaven but this seems like the next best thing.