the bad hat: it's all in my head
Author: J.E. Molly Seegers
Original source / (Archived link)
Author’s note: Lots of kids in my high school had blogs so I jumped on the band wagon. I used the pseudonym “the bad hat” after the character in Madeline, the children’s book series. 2004/2005 was a difficult time in my life because my parents surprise announced that they were getting divorced and that I’d be moving into Manhattan with my mother and starting a new school while my father remained living upstate. This blog was a way to try to connect with my new peers and to write about my depression. Although re-reading my high school blog makes me cringe, I’m really glad that it somehow still exists online.
Why do we live up to the standards in our heads? In my life experience none of my expectations in my head have occurred. However, everything I look for in life and everything I experience I compare it against what I have imagined. Sort of on the other hand… Why do we settle for less than perfect? Is it because we don’t think we will find what we want? Or maybe what we have is perfect, but we cannot recognize is because we are constantly comparing it to our dream. If we give up on our dreams and be happy with what we find is it better than if we hold our dreams stedfast and live never attaining what we want? So many question running through my head.
As I walked home, alone, all of things were making my mind swell with ideas and questions. I walked seven blocks out of my way just to be recognized. Holden Caulfield is so right. I know that ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is the quintessential teenage novel, but I have shunned every other teenage cliche so I might as well give in this one time. I have never been enchanted with the teenage scene of feeling bad for yourself and wanting to be original and not wanting to be put into a category and all those things that make me cringe. (Note: I am enchanted with high school romance. Just so that I am not a hypocrite) So I am going to give into one. Like, OH MY GOD, I would totally marry Holden, he is sooo brooding, like, don’t you think he is soooo cute? So why I brought up ‘TCTR’…..
- because the word ‘hot’ meant a lie, and now it means attractive. very strange change. E.G. “I just thanked her and told her I was going to South America with my grandmother. Which was a really hot one, because my grandmother hardly ever even goes out of the house, except maybe to go to a goddam matinee or something.” (58)
- I love the way he tries to get drunk at the hotel bar. (70)
- How the club that my grandfather used to run is mentioned as being a really swank place to go. (73)
Now I’m getting off of why I brought this up. OK, I brought it up because there is this one time he mentions that is it so strange how you can feel so lonely in such a big town. (I know the acual line is different, but I lent my copy with all my notes in it to my friend and never got it back) By going out my way to get home I was hoping to meet my soulmate and live happily ever after. Hey, I am being honest. However, I only got the domino’s delivery guy and older men on work breaks to notice me. Not exactly what I wanted. I want this spring to be what I imagined. Why am I holding onto this ideal when it won’t happen? I felt very by myself walking home. Don’t get me wrong, I am a loner, but when you feel you are going to hang out with mother because your friends are going out of town you feel kind of sad. Not emotionally sad, but almost, “That girl is hanging out with her mother on Friday night. That is really sad.”
I’m going to Andover this weekend to visit my brother. Usually I would have visited a bunch of times by this time of the year, but for some reason I havent been up at all this year. I keep picturing him in his dorm from last year. I need to visit my puppy because he is… uh living in an all-boys dorm room and I’m single. No, no, I want to visit my brother, ha ha?
My lilacs are blooming. I want to go to the roof and fall asleep in the sun. Won’t you join me? Ha, that is what Mister Rogers used to say. Don’t you remember Mister Rogers? Come on, that guy who was always tying his shoes when he came on the TV?
You will never regret taking a picture,
the bad hat
posted by The Bad Hat at 3:32 PM on Apr 29, 2005
