TWO STORIES

ONE

I should probably start with a disclaimer: that’s not a picture of me. Well, it is me but it’s not ME me. I’m not like that at all. First of all, check out the hair. That’s a bucket worth of peroxide and baking soda and then a whole lot of teasing. This was the getup for some high school play where they needed a sexy flirt in one of the scenes. I got roped into the role but I think they did it as a joke because it was the total opposite of me. I was the shy studious type, always with my nose in a book. You could count on one hand the number of dates I had. However, during the play, I discovered that I actually had that side to me. It was really fun–but it didn’t last long. Once the play was over it was buried again, never to see the light of day.

Although it was more than 20 years ago, I’ve kept the picture for a reason. I mean, my life’s been a good life. I’ve married a great guy, have a wonderful daughter and a stable, secure job as a paralegal. But it’s all serious stuff–no one gets wild and crazy in a law office.

Some nights, after a glass of wine, I look at the picture and start thinking–what if I hadn’t been such a serious, well-behaved kid in school? What if I’d let that other side come out? I know my life would have been different, I just wonder if it would have been better. Just a little bit.

Story by Will Conway

TWO

Oh, to be young!

I was eighteen in this picture, maybe nineteen? First year of college and what did I do? Chopped off my hair and bleached it blonde week one! I still remember my ultra conservative Catholic mother’s face when I came home for Thanksgiving. Thank God it wasn’t summer and I could conceal the belly button ring another month. “Hair grows back, but belly buttons don’t,” in my mother’s words, not mine.
Jennie took this picture of me, absolutely trashed. We, the freshman year college friend group, had just left an all you can eat Chinese buffet, drank our weight in liquor and were about to hit the town. And by “town,” I mean the one local college bar in our tiny town, the same place we frequented the Friday before that, and the one before that, and on and on.

I used to love that stupid Playboy Bunny shirt. I still have it, I sleep in it, and it is so stretched and worn and holed. I bought it on a whim at a Hot Topic as another way to rebel against my mother. Getting ready was the best part of going out, me and the girls of the group, Jennie, Sarah, and I, Heather, doing each other’s make-up, trading clothes, and curling their straight hair and straightening my curly hair. That skirt was Sarah’s, I think, and I God was it itchy and short!

I remember her. So young, so carefree. So loving and joyful. I get so caught up in my day to day and my kids and aging body and what other people think and on and on. I should call Jennie and Sarah. Get the band back together for a night. Maybe I’ll dig out the hair straightener and that shirt. I remember her, but I think I forgot that I am still her.

Story by Sophia S