The History of Adolescence As Told Through Made-For-Television

It:

You will have a fear of clowns for the rest of your life. Not just clowns but clown-like things⎯rainbow colored wigs, foam rubber balls, any and all face paint. You resent your mother for always leaving you alone, even though she works nights and has no choice. You should be sleeping but instead you stay up until it's over. You try to fall asleep with every light on, believing that nothing will happen as long as the house stays lit up like Christmas. You want to talk to someone but there's no one you can think of to call. You lie cocooned in your bed waiting for morning, with only the television's unfamiliar voices to keep you company.

The Day After:

Your 8th grade teacher wants to explain nuclear war by showing this 80's film. You're half-asleep throughout most of it, waiting for the inevitable. When the moment comes you stare in guilty fascination as a red-orange squid of smoke blooms into the sky. You watch as the smoke turns black and the camera switches to snapshots of bodies turning to skeletons with each blink. You have nightmares for days after of charcoal skeletons swimming in a sea of blood-colored water.

What is the point in watching about something that nearly happened? You're old enough now to know how much nearly doesn't matter. In the hospital after the surgery, for instance, the doctors explained again how lucky your mother was that it was caught early. The point of the close-call was emphasized. She nearly could have died.

Even still, what you took away from it all, what you chose to remember, is that she didn't.

Fine Things/Star/Secrets:

Everything you learn about guys you learn from Danielle Steele. You learn the importance of keeping your options open, for there is often someone, somewhere, who is waiting to be with you. The problem becomes finding him. You convince yourself that you must look glamorous like these woman so you learn the tricks of make-up, how to style your hair, what clothes to buy. You can't buy the things you've convinced yourself you need. You settle for the cosmetics at Wal-Greens⎯Cover-Girl Tru-Blend that cakes your skin, Sun-In to lighten your dark hair because your mother won't let you use bleach like you want. This marks the beginning of your obsession with costume jewelry.

Some days, you look in the mirror and think you're almost beautiful. Almost⎯it is a word you'll live with for the rest of your life, and you'll look into hundreds of ways and countless products in your search to get rid of it.

Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?:

You watch this in the hospital with your mother. You've been given a few days off from school to be here with her, to keep her company, to hold her hand.

"This one's a classic," she says. She is propped in the bed with pillows. "It's a shame we're not home to record it."

"This guy's kind of an asshole."

"He's cute though, look at the hair. The hair is key. This girl though, bleck. Who would be with her? Anyway, I've had worse boyfriends. Your father, for instance."

"Haven't we all," I say, not thinking.

"What? Are you seeing someone? Tell me, what's his name? What's he look like? You have to give me something."

You look at your mother. Her eyes are bright and shining with expectancy. You don't have the heart to tell her the truth, that it was just a flippant remark, that you didn't mean anything by it. So instead you lie, making up a name. By the time the commercial break comes you've created a fictional boyfriend, complete with the history of your relationship. It is the first time you can remember in which your mother does not interrupt you to talk about herself.

Fifteen and Pregnant:

It's hard to sympathize with Kristen Dunst when you're two years older and still a virgin. You get the movie's message, you don't need to watch to understand, but right now sex is all that's in your mind⎯what it would feel like to be with a boy, to have his hands on the places on your body only you yourself have touched. You stare at Kristen Dunst. She is not pretty, you think, but she is skinny. You suspect this is the problem for why you are alone. You could stand to lose a little weight, you tell yourself. It does not occur to you yet that sex doesn't always equal love, even though in the film Kirsten's boyfriend eventually leaves her. At least, you think, she had been with someone, had experienced affection.

For days you try not to eat. You drink water whenever you feel the gurgling of your stomach. You go to bed early so you don't have to think about food. Then one evening you decide you've had enough and you cook a package of Hamburger Helper and eat half of what's in the pan while standing over it. You stuff each creamy spoonful in your mouth, gulping it down. When your mother comes home from work, she looks at you and she looks at the almost empty pan. "Well, christ," she says.

Why I Wore Lipstick To My Mastectomy:

It is years later. You have just moved in with your boyfriend. He is your first one, though he is unaware of this truth. There are many things about you he doesn't know, yet he loves you. You believe he does.

Sometimes in bed, your boyfriend will ask you about your mother and her death, and you'll reference scenes from this movie. He doesn't want to hear about the guilt of leaving home and never returning, of being seven states away and afraid even of picking up the phone and hearing her pleading voice. No, no one wants to hear about the lies told, so elaborate and sincere that you've convinced even yourself.

Instead you talk of images⎯chemo treatments, puke buckets, the inevitable shopping for a wig. When one drunken night you use kitchen scissors to hack your hair off, you convince yourself it's therapy. It's a scene played many times before in different situations, circumstances. It is only after when you realize that the memory you've created for yourself isn't even yours. How much of your life, you begin to wonder, have you given? How much of who you are, can you really say, is yours?