Child of Pine vs Child of Drunk College Parties by Katy Mayfield
As many of you know (Or at least I think you know, otherwise I am just being my vain little self) I specialize in tragic narrative. Which probably spawns from the lack of tragedy in my own life, which is why, dear acquaintances, this entire piece I will look back on with disdain. Because good writing always involves tragedy, and the only tragedy I am host to is psychological and under lock-and-key, and don't even bother asking me about it. It does, however, spawn from some of my environment. Don't get me wrong- my childhood was a blissful walk in the park. Athens is one of the safest towns in the state. I think. You know what? I'm sorry. I will bet you much money that was a lie.
But I have gotten off topic. YOU'VE GOTTEN OFF TOPIC! I'm sorry again. I promise schizophrenia is not one of the psychological issues I was previously discussing. Swear. ANYWAY, when you live two streets down from sorority row of the UGA (fifth-best party college in the country, according to CNN, by the way) the things that go bump in the night are usually just knocked over speakers previously playing immensely profane LMFAO music. Nonetheless, they are still bumps in the night, and can still be frightening. My father, I will always remember, was, as I considered him to be as a child, a safety freak. As I grew older, I inherited his paranoia, and broken beer bottles no longer represented fun and parties (By this I don't mean that I myself engaged in the fun and parties. If I was drinking at age nine, my problems would be a lot larger than they are now), but teen drinking, arrest, heartbreak, and bad decisions. In a way, this is good. Being cautious can be a gift. But when fights erupt on your bus every other week, and you run for the exits when, in reality, the girls you assumed were rumbling were actually just playing a heated game of slaps, it can be inconvenient and unsettling. My life in a rather raucous town has turned me into the exact opposite, for better or worse. And to be honest, when I look back on this time, I predict that I will check option 2. I look over my shoulder every couple of seconds when I walk home from school to make sure no one is following me with a taser (the computer says I spelled that wrong. Taser? Tazer? Tazzer?), ready to kidnap me and strap me to a fence for nine years. So, there's that. To my kids in the future, I apologize ahead of time for dressing you up like the kid in
A Christmas Story so that you do not get hypothermia and so the taser cannot penetrate your skin through your many layers.
Classmates, I know you are bored now. Or maybe you like my insecurities in disguise as awkward nerd-jokes. I don't know. Or you might not be my classmate. You could be that guy with a taser. If so, know that I am looking out for you.
There are parts of my life in Athens, though, that I enjoyed. For example, my school. I know that many of you groan as I say this, but I stand with my statement. The diverse student body, the many dialects mingling in the hallways, even the disruptive teeth-sucking, eye rolling, and back-talking (I sincerely apologize for finding entertainment in the bane of your existence, teachers). I like that I live in a place so unlike the one in that episode of
Seinfeld, (Dolls, I got some serious eighties references comin' up, so if you were born after, say, 1970, you can just leave now) where one of my best friends can be pro-life and yet I can still stand to be within fifty feet of said friend. I like that when I watch
Mean Girls (Hey, an almost up-to-date reference! Aren't you proud of me?) I stare at the screen as if North Shore High School is a parallel universe to my own. I like that the people who read my blog entries won't judge me because I actually found the name of the
Mean Girls school on Ask.com because the only things that stick in my head include the words "Young Adult Fantasy Literature". But in all seriousness, I like that I have grown up in a world where anti-conformity has been shoved down our throats so far, it is now in our bloodstream. I like that I can be the nerd, even though I've never played Minecraft before, ever (twenty of my friends just dropped me like a hot potato right there) that one can be the jock, one can be the music nerd, one can be the TV junkie, one can be the fangirl, and yet there is no hierarchy, no popular girl. We are just us. and I realize I sound cheesy, and I realize I sound like I'm pulling mushy-gushy out of my seat to get a good grade or something, but I really do cherish where I've been, because it's the perfect backdrop for where I'm going.
Oh, and just as a side note, this totally wrecks my nice emotional moment right there, but also trees. Like Ray, trees are important to me. But not because I like to climb them, like she does. I just like to stand there and feel the air and stop and laugh at a joke someone made 3 periods ago that I was way slow to get, and then when someone asks what I'm doing, I tilt my head and pretend I'm looking at the "beautiful trees". But really, I really like trees. I like the trees in Athens and in my neighborhood in particular. They provide protection, they provide shade, they provide a coziness yet a freedom that Snuggies can't, and, most importantly, they provide really fun games of flashlight charades when they decide to fall on our power lines. If there's anything I've learned from spending two months a year in a dry, flat prairie, it is that trees and squirrels are immensely helpful to one's mental health. Mainly because prairie dogs are a lot less talkative than squirrels, and their northern accents are utterly impossible to understand. Which actually has nothing to do with trees.
