Cigarettes and Coffee Cups

My senior year of high school I ended up in a private school. The particulars of that series of events are of no importance to this story. What is relevant to this trip down memory, is that my high school was an alternative school. Most of the students, like me, had done something to get themselves kicked out of public school. 

It was an interesting place. I don't remember having any static with anyone there. I had a few friends or at least people I was friendly with. I did not keep up with anyone. I suppose a lack of long term connections is something of a repeated pattern in my life. I suspect it is for most people. Who knows? It has been twenty five years since high school. 

Other than graduating and taking a very basic art class I don't have a ton of memories of that year. I remember feeling displaced. That is an emotion I doubt I will ever get used to. It likely put me in a headspace of 'going along to get along.' I was not going to become a mindless sheep or anything, but for a while I was just tired of feeling like every move I made rocked the boat. Part of me wishes that I had held on to the things I wrote at that age. I suspect I would find my nearly 17 year-old self sad and lost. 

I point out what I recall of my mental state because it is a small part of the story that follows. I have come to laugh at my self in a good natured way over the years. Feeling foolish stings in the moment. I do not condone negative self talk. In this case I think most people will think I can call myself a dumbass without any bitterness or real self recrimination. It comes out with a sort of incredulity that mixed with both fondness and exasperation. 

It was my senior year of high school. I had come into my height. My shoulders had not begun to come in. Neither had my facial hair except for a sorry excuse for a mustache which would have been more at home in the mug shot of a serial killer or, perhaps, on the face of a porn star from the 1970s. I suspect from the evidence of that mustache I did not have a great deal of friends. I can say that my girlfriend at that time was either blinded by love or particularly forgiving of my bad taste. No one had bothered to tell me to shave. 

I wore a lot of black t-shirts. I wore combat boots daily. The baggy, wide leg jean fad was upon us as well. Only four short years before I was tucking my jeans into my boots. Now my boots were typically lost under the wide flared legs of JNCO jeans. This was not a look I should gave gone for. I would not realize it for most of that year. 

I was shaggy headed. I had not quite hit on the idea of frosting the tips of my hair yet. That wouldn't really hit popularity for a couple of years when I would attempt it and transform myself first into a copper top and then be transformed by a stylist into an epic platinum cheetah print that I neither asked for nor desired. I only cut my hair when it started to wing out the sides of my baseball cap. If I remember correctly at that point I mostly sported a Yankees cap. I have no idea why. I didn't follow any sports. 

I had round framed glasses. They were wire framed but had big lenses. Looking back I cannot figure out how I picked those out. Maybe it was my phase trying to emulate John Lennon. Perhaps I didn't put a lot of thought into it. I don't clearly remember. I did not look rebellious or cool which I am sure I was trying for. I suspect I looked like a confused nerd who was trying far too hard to be cool. Confused was a big theme for me back then even though I liked to pretend I had everything all worked out. 

The chip on my shoulder was metaphorically the size of a wrecking ball. I felt extra defeated from my junior year and the start of my senior year. I started having trouble focusing on the present and kept getting myself into difficulties which I wouldn't realize were of my own making until I woke up in my 30s looking back on my memories with horror and shame. Luckily not all of my shenanigans were tragic. 

Let me tell you how I started smoking cigarettes. All of the kids I went to school with smoked between classes. I would often gather with them and cough heavily as they went through the rituals of the tobacco addicted. Genius that I am, I knew I was allergic to cigarette smoke. 

A little bit desperate to fit in, I decided that I would taking up the habit. Let me be clear that my classmates could not have cared less if I was a smoker. They did not ask questions or even pay that any attention. I stood with them talking, laughing, and joking as normal as you please. I suppose my insecurities were driving me to add commonality for additional approval and acceptance even though I do not recall anyone giving any form of rejection toward me. 

On this whim, I went to the local gas station on my way to school one morning. I bought a pack of cigarettes. The first problem hit here. Although I had a few aunts and uncles who smoked, my parents did not smoke. I had never paid attention to any branding beyond knowing my grandmother had lots of swag from Camel which I thought was cool. 

I didn't go for Camels. I went for Marlboros. I got myself the manliest of manly Marlboros too. I bought, in my ignorance, Ultra Light 100s. The silver pack looked cool to me. I still like silver better than gold or red. Smokers will know I basically bought grandma's cigarette. Someone probably said even their grandma doesn't go for something that weak. It could only have been worse if I showed up with Virginia Slims.

First break rolls around and I pile outside with everyone else. I unwrap that pack after what was an abusive amount of slamming them against my palm. I have no idea what that move was for. I had just seen it done. In other words, for no reason I could understand, I beat the ever loving shit out of that pack before peeling away the cellophane. 

I pulled out a Marlboro Ultra Light 100. I slid the pack in my pocket. Out comes the zippo I have carried for years... which is probably its own story. I hold the cigarette in my left hand, the zippo is flaming nicely in my right, and I attempt to light the cigarette without drawing on it. 

Now, if you are a nonsmoker like I was then and continue to be to this day, you may not know you need to inhale through a cigarette to get it lit. I had seen people light up about a million times in my life up to that moment, but I had never put any thought to it. At the moment I was starting to smoke, I didn't really want to inhale the thing, but still be able to consider myself a smoker. My less than clever plan was to just sort of let it burn down without really smoking it. Thankfully that incredibly asinine and potentially expensive idea didn't get very far. 

The damned thing wouldn't take flame. A friend eventually explained the problem to me. In response I slid the cigarette back into the pack, closed it, and offered them to anyone who wanted them. No one wanted my old lady cigarettes. I dropped them in the butt bin and went back inside with my face and ears glowing bright red in self inflicted humiliation. 

I am a bit proud of the next part. Instead of beating myself up about it, I took a lesson pretty quick. I had embarrassed myself trying to fit in and be something I am not. It was a lesson that stuck with me for a long, long time. In fact, it really kept me from following other people into stupid things for approval for the majority of my life. Nothing like feeling really stupid and fake to make an impact.

Only, maybe I did not learn that lesson as well as I thought I did. I keep my hair cut short because I am embarrassed about how other people react to it as it grows out. Left to my own devices, I think I prefer my hair long. A bigger indicator I didn't take the great Marlboro Ultra Light 100 fiasco to heart comes in an interesting form: a coffee cup. 

A few months ago I went to a work event and two of my coworkers that I admire were deep in a discussion about coffee. I wanted to be included in the conversation. The best thing I could interject was my observations on coffee drinkers which can at best be summed up as insulting. No coffee lover has ever appreciated me talking about, 'the cult of coffee," or how amusing I fine it when coffee lovers have a neat language of their own. 

I interjected when I should have stayed silent. I believe I made them uncomfortable. They bounced quickly into talking about beer. 

I also do not drink beer or alcoholic beverages. I haven't drank alcohol since long before I was legal to do so minus a few times where I did so it super limited quantities to not be a complete outcast socially.  Again, I should have just sat there quietly and listened politely. Instead I did a bit of patter about how beer drinkers use overly sexual language to describe their experiences these days. It sounded like a lame attempt at putting together an opening tight five for a doomed-to-fail stand up bit. 

Seriously. It was cringe-worthy. I felt it as I was doing it and just could not shut up. One of them talked about a bar that served tacos. I seized on that long enough to stop sounding like a fool. I can talk tacos. I said many silent thank yous, but realized that the conversation had died due to my interjection. I made an excuse and left the room and then kept silent upon my return. 

Lots of negative self talk followed. I replayed the incident far more than I should have. It stuck with me enough that I problem solved for it. I would keep my mouth shut about coffee from that point forward unless someone asked. I also ordered myself a travel coffee cup. 

My plan was to give myself coffee camouflage. I would quietly sip my water from my coffee cup. It would make it look as if were a part of what they enjoyed without me interjected. This felt really good. I didn't for a moment think about the implications or being motivated by my own sense of inferiority or insecurity. I never went that far. 

It all felt good. I headed to the office with cup in hand this week. I sipped my water. Not one person noticed or paid an ounce of attention that I noticed. Around lunch, on my third or fourth refill of the cup I had the epiphany that I had tried for inclusion at the cost of being true to myself. It was the cigarette thing all over again. 

I did not like that feeling. The next day I returned with my 32 ounce Nalgene bottle and openly drank fresh, ice-cold water all day. No one cared a fig about that either. I was a lot happier though. I was being true to myself. Also, because I have learned a lesson or two and gained some maturity I decided to be very thankful for the small price of the cup reminding me of such a valuable lesson. 

The reminder allowed me to hang out with friends who were enjoying casual drinks while I sipped water after work. The newcomers to the group asked a few innocent questions of why I don't drink alcohol. I told them the truth in simple terms. 

Two things are true about me when I drink alcohol. First, I tend to be a mean drunk after just a few drinks. I like to pick fights. That isn't a good look. Second, I am always sick at my stomach the next day no matter how much alcohol I have consumed. I will have to worship the porcelain throne. It just isn't worth solving for when that sickness is so easily avoided. 

I get super uptight about explaining this and it takes away the joy of hanging out with people having drinks. That is why I quit going out with friends to bars and the like. This time though, I decided to shut up, relax, and enjoy the food and the company. I wasn't going to get defensive about drinking. I also wasn't going to suffer through drinks to fit in. 

A funny thing happened. I actually got out of my head. I joined in conversations with people I care for and like. I don't think I brought down their good times (which is also a frequent side effect of me being all insecure about not drinking) and I had a nice couple of evenings out. 

It is a shame that there are so many things I have built up in my head that have prevented me being comfortable and enjoying myself. In addition to learning the lesson of being true to myself I have finally picked up a second important point that I should have likely learned long before high school. I should not be so focused on approval that I lose the ability to enjoy living my life. I do not have to impress anyone on a personal level. The people who are going to like me will like me for me. 

Who gives a shit about the people who don't like me? To be fair, I probably do. I really like most everyone. I want most everyone to like me. I am just not going to keep working myself up about being included or approved of. It wears me out and gets in the way of a lot of good things. 

It is a lot easier to set all of that free.