I was a mediocre tennis player in high school. I often choked under pressure and didn’t relish competition. I had no desire to play tennis in college and went to a small private high school. We competed in a bottom tier league full of similarly talented players. I played during the offseason to keep my skills up and progress in rank, but I had no desire for state or regional glory. The balance sheet in my head told me the added stress and commitment wasn’t worth it if I didn’t plan to play competitively in the future. Whether this was my INTJ personality formulating excuses to appease my perfectionism and avoid the risk of failure is up for debate. Without a doubt, it’s possible. All I know is that I had fun. I made my teammates laugh, and they gave me the most inspirational/team spirit award at the end of the season. I turned bright red and made a self-deprecating joke as I reached for my plastic trophy.

At some point, I joined the Spanish Club, though I don’t recall attending any meetings except for the one where we took a group picture for the yearbook. In the photo, my hair is a gigantic curly mess, and I’m wearing an ugly patchwork sweater that, at the time, was the height of fashion. I didn’t participate in any other activities that I can recall.

My grades were okay, especially in English Language Arts. My SAT scores were strong, but nothing extraordinary. I know I did far better in English and writing than in math. I don’t remember details, but this was a long time ago. For me, looking back on high school is like staring into a foggy mirror. I know I’m in there, but it’s all a blur.

I read a lot, far more than my peers. I skipped most parties but listened to music and made mixed tapes. I went to the movies and hung out at the mall. I worked on my tan and laid out by the pool. I traveled with my family for two weeks every August. I was timid and introverted, but overall I was a typical teenager. I graduated (middle of the pack?) and went to an excellent university.

Today I wouldn’t fare as well. I know this because we recently had a telephone call with a college coach, something we hadn’t considered until we heard it was part of my husband’s benefits package. When a friend asked me how it went, all I could say was that it was everything we feared but didn’t want to contemplate.

My favorite parenting book of all time is Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne. It’s my standard baby shower gift, and I recommend it to any parent willing to listen to me talk about slowing down. That book changed me. The college process is asking me to pluck my favorite book off the shelf and light it on fire.

We are late to the college process. We should have started in middle school. We should be working off a plan and creating an identity package and thinking strategically. It’s not enough to have good grades or be a good kid. Teenagers today need to invent Google 2.0 or swim backstroke while playing the violin at the Olympics. Mikey plays clarinet, and we don’t have a pool.

Right here. Right here at this sentence, at this painfully restrained string of words, is where I should stop writing. I should turn off my computer and read a book or listen to music or create a Spotify playlist since mixed tapes don’t exist, and all the malls are closed. Instead, I will sit here and ask the internet if anyone else wonders what we are doing to our kids.

I know good, smart kids who didn’t get into the colleges of their choice–and they weren’t aiming exceptionally high. To be fair, I also know good, smart kids who played the game and got into fantastic schools. The college coach told Mikey that while he appreciated his humble attitude as a character trait, it wasn’t going to get him into college. “You need to sell yourself, really make yourself stand out. Don’t forget; you’re competing against the OC kids. Colleges need to believe you’re special.”

He is special, they all are, but that argument won’t get anyone into college.

You spend your time as a parent regretting the past or worrying about the future. Occasionally, you get to do both. Should we have pushed the extra-curricular activities? I knew I should have sent him to that fancy science camp! What if he doesn’t like his chosen major? Fifteen is too young to know what you want to do for the rest of your life! Years ago, I got off the roller coaster. I didn’t think to worry about the people still willing to ride or that the barker was on the admissions committee.

I am confident both my sons will be fine. They’ll graduate from great colleges and have great jobs and become great people. But a part of me is sad; they may not ever have the opportunity to be okay with good. They may not want to take a class just because it sounds interesting, or read a book without linking it to their Goodreads account as proof, or make a playlist with their favorite songs because everything is traceable! What would the UC system think if they knew that in 2011 they were really into Minecraft parody songs? It would not do. It simply would not do!

What a blessing it was to be a typical teenager, growing up anonymously with books and music and a thoroughly mediocre tennis game.

 

This is my last week before I go back to school. Summer is almost over.

I started this blog 10 years ago on my 35th birthday. Nico was 9 months old and Mikey was 3. I was a stay at home mom. The boys and I kept mostly to ourselves. I felt out-of-place in “mom groups” and didn’t take part much in activities like Gymboree or similar toddler classes. Instead, we did a lot of activities at home. I cooked a lot from scratch and tried, without success, to like crafting. I watched a lot of dinosaur cartoons and documentaries. I read almost nonstop, mostly romance, but also a bit from the book list in The Western Canon. I also read a lot of John Irving. I adored A Prayer for Owen Meany. My weight yo-yo’d throughout.

I used to blog about family life without much fanfare until Nico marked up our living room with a red sharpie. That was my only experience going viral. Some guys invented Twitter and then another guy invented Facebook. I signed up for both. I continued to write about anything and everything until my friend’s parents became suddenly and gravely ill. That experience changed my life. I began The William Morris Project. Decluttering and organizing became the focus of my life until I started volunteering at the boys’ school as the librarian. One day I looked up and realized I had a job. It was getting harder to write regularly and the boys were getting old enough that writing about them didn’t feel as harmless. I felt the eyes of the parents at school and started censoring myself. Blogging was no longer a fun way to express myself creatively. I would stop and then miss it and then start again. I tried writing only about books, and then only about decluttering. I stopped trying to make blogging a thing and decided to write when I felt the urge. That turned into blogging my summer projects.

Mikey is now 14 and starts high school in a couple of days. Nico is 11 and going into 6th grade. I work as a school librarian, a career that just happened. I’m still married to a wonderful, quiet man who avoids the internet. He doesn’t even like to go on Amazon! He travels a lot.

I grew a spine during the last 10 years. I’m less tolerant and forgiving of selfish people with bad intentions. I find it easier to erase people like that from my life. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. How I spend my time has changed as well. I no longer read romances. They’re all the same, and that drives me batty. Funny, because that familiar predictability is exactly what I loved about the genre 10 years ago. Young Adult books, now that I read them for work, are an absolute chore to read. I wish publishers would realize that teenagers are capable of enjoying well written, complex storytelling. Until then, I guess I’ll keep reading this book about a teenage girl who sets off to save the world from mean adults with a guy she can’t stand but is kinda cute and maybe she likes him? I wonder how it will end. 

I was Catholic by culture, not really knowing more than the bare minimum about my faith, but now I am Catholic by study. Reading and studying Catholicism has given me a surprisingly fulfilling intellectual challenge. Reading more literature and classics has done the same for me. This is good and happened out of necessity. I felt bored with everything and unable to comment or participate in anything interesting. I love my job and the little ones at school, but that coupled with too much time in some corners of the internet had done a number on my brain cells. I still feel that way. I’m working on it. 

I’m not where I was 10 years ago. In some ways I’ve grown, in some ways I haven’t. Time keeps marching on and I’m glad to have documented at least a bit of this journey along the way.