2003-04-18

The Track.

I spent the bulk of my formative years in a small, private Catholic school, in an affluent suburb that's frequently derided by Globe columnist Brian McGrory. I try not to be one of those wrist-to-forehead types who blame all adulthood tics on whether or not they fit in at school, but I can safely say that I suspected that I didn't belong in that school from the very first day of kindergarten.

There was a very clear track that every kid was on in that school. You "graduated" in eighth grade, and you went to one of three high schools: the all-girls (Notre Dame), the all-boys (BC High), or � if you were a little "eccentric" � the co-ed (Archbishop Williams, or "Archie's"). From there it was good grades, the "right" extracurriculars, Confirmation in 10th grade, a second try at the SATs if the first scores weren't good enough to take a stab at Early Admissions, and then of course � the "right" college, where you'd find the "right" (e.g. - Catholic) person to marry and have nice, big families with. Simple, clear-cut, easy-to-follow.

I think kids have a better go at pretending they know the score up until seventh grade. I, for one, couldn't pretend, which sort of bothered me, but later, as I got older, I just stopped caring that I couldn't pretend. I was chubby, bespectacled, perpetually hyper and wired and weird and just patently uncool. I couldn't get the hang of "cool" to save my life; it simply was not in the hand I was dealt. I was smack-dab in the middle of a group of kids who, by fifth grade, were merely smaller versions of who they were to become. Eleven-year-old Junior Leaguers who already shopped at Lord & Taylor. By seventh grade, I simply stopped giving a shit and just shut down, mentally and spiritually. My parents, alarmed, scheduled a conference with the principal, and were basically told that I was "uncooperative." I was making no attempt to stay on track.

I left that school in the middle of seventh grade, but not without grave reservations on the part of the one or two kids in my class that would still talk to me. We had been taught that public school was bad, that the kids in public school weren't getting a "good education," and that it was just a one-way ticket to drug addiction, premarital sex and bad penmanship. I nodded gravely and tried my best to look sincerely thoughtful about these warnings, but the fact of the matter was that all I wanted was to be able to wake up in the morning without a stomachache.

Fast-forward to senior year of high school. I can't remember the exact circumstances, but somehow I'd found myself in the same room as one of the aforementioned classmates, "catching up." C.C. had been a boon companion from first grade up through sixth or so, when the "trouble" really started for me. We were grubby little girls who watched and enjoyed public television, built forts, and wrote stories.

She had become cool, elegant, almost regal. Perfectly sun-kissed hair, tidy sweater and loafers. She was looking at Princeton, maybe Yale, taking the A.P. classes and doing everything that she was supposed to be doing.

I sat there and listened to her, and for the first time in years, remembered that I had fallen off the track.

I looked down at my own shoes, white Chuck Taylors with the Dead Milkmen logo painstakingly recreated with a Sharpie marker. My own hair was an inky black, growing out in dishwater auburn on the sides from where my sister had attempted to give me a mohawk. I was failing all my classes except Drama and English. My best guy friend had the shit kicked out of him two days before by several members of the hockey team. I spent most of my days cutting classes, cadging smokes in the back of the auditorium, and writing shitty poetry. I wasn't a miserable kid, but I was still pretty much "uncooperative." What could I tell her?

I lied.

I lied my face clear the fuck off. A.P. classes. Accepted to Tisch at NYU. Student Council. Oh, yes. I painted a pup-perfect portrait of the punky-yet-straight-as-an-arrow Good Kid�.

She couldn't have believed me.

I think about that encounter still. Why did I lie? Why did it matter? What did I want or need to prove to her? We built forts together, wrote stories. Did she remember? I wanted us to be the same, wanted us to be on the same track. She's an architect or something now.

Them 12-steppers like to say that "expectations are pre-meditated resentments."

lisamcc at 12:13 p.m.

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