Life, Loss, and Other Things Worth Mentioning: Stuff You Never Knew You Wanted To Know About Me

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Stuff You Never Knew You Wanted To Know About Me

3:09 PM | Posted by Maria |

I went to a college prep boarding school. I always say that my brother was a genius and I was a legacy. It was a school full of rich freakishly intelligent kids. I always felt like Penny on Big Bang Theory minus the ditsy charm, quick witty replies, and sex appeal. I walked around the small campus between classes mostly hiding my face and saying a quick hello to anyone I passed only because it was socially expected. Each time I had to do that, my heart would race. After I muttered the quick greeting, I would hear how my voice sounded and it would echo in my head. I would then ridicule myself for how stupid my "hello" was. I was so shy, it hurt.

Somehow, in the summertime I was about as confident and fun as ever. I would find myself in situations where I was "going with" one guy and another was crying because I was his one and only and I just had to give him a chance. It was like a 3 month version of the twilight zone for me. Then, I would return to school and I couldn't even smile at a boy without feeling like I was going to barf.

I went to college and decided that I was going to recreate myself. That I did. I recreated myself into a confident, life of the party, never left the party-- girl. I was that festively fun girl for 2 years. It was after about a year and a half that I was seriously flunking out of school. Not like, "I should be doing better." It was, "I am not going to get more than a D in anything this year." Those two years I had more fun than I ever had in my life but it was time to grow up. I transferred to a different college and thankfully grades didn't transfer but I would get credit for anything I got at least a D in. It was a fresh slate and I got to start over.

In my college summers I worked at an amusement park in Ohio. I was one of those sweeper girls that would walk around with a dust pan and broom and clean up all of the cheesy fries and cigarette butts. One the strange things about working there was that people seemed to think that because it was like a whole different "place" that they were in Amsterdam. I can't count how many times I got to help the undercover cops bust people that were walking around the park smoking pot like they were in some dude's basement. My favorite was when a guy walked right up to me, smoking a marijuana cigar and asked me for a map. After calling park security, I hid behind a bush and watched the bust. They brought enough pot to stuff one of those inflatable hammers you can win for if they can't guess how much you weigh. "On coming riders, please secure all sunglasses, hats, keys and illegal drugs, for C.P. can't be held responsible for their loss or damage... "

Share something that you think most people would be surprised to know about you.