I expected “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” to be an affecting movie, but I didn’t expect it to affect me on so many levels and to such a depth. I will not attempt to articulate it all, but I will say that it’s pretty true what Charlie expressed towards the end of the movie, that “…there are people who forget what it’s like to be 16 when they turn 17.”
It is easy for many of us to push the angst and discomfort of those years under the rug because—let’s face it—who likes to feel that way? You may continue to disremember, even when a teenager tells you she’s a misfit or a weirdo. You may ask her, “Is that what other people call you or what you call yourself?”
And then there’s the voice of my 7th grade self, which asked her friends jokingly, “If everyone in the world is weird, then is it weird to be ‘normal?’” Some 16 years removed from that time and I am still asking myself the same question.
The in-between years found me in the midst of an at times tumultuous negotiation of Meg Murry’s assertion: “‘Maybe I don’t like being different,’ Meg said. ‘But I don’t want to be like everybody else either.’” [1] Bouncing back and forth between trying to stand out and trying to blend in can give you whiplash. So, slowly, I’ve begun to give in—not to either extreme but simply to what is real and true and to being myself, whether that means I will blend in or stand out.
In some ways I don’t feel so far removed from my teenage years, though, in the sense that I still connect in such a salient way to the “island of misfit toys” and feel so much for the pain of being misunderstood, cast off, even hated for being different.
Is there a part of every person that somehow feels like a misfit? Is there a part of each of them that knows they are different, no matter how much they may appear to fit in? Kind of like what Meg said about her twin brothers: “‘I don’t know if they’re really like everybody else, or if they’re just able to pretend they are.’”
[1] A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
I had to read A Wrinkle in Time in the 4th or 5th grade and at the time, it was such a hard book for me to grasp. I haven’t reread it for a long time but I think there’s a wealthy of ideas in there to look into and think about. Since I was little, I recall often wishing I could conform to be like other people but at the same time, knowing it was impossible because it just wasn’t ME. Maybe the real challenge was/is looking at what’s standard “normal” and figuring it out how to make it our own or a unique part of ourselves without feeling like we’re trying to be someone we’re not. Good stuff! Miss you friend!
Aahhh miss you too! Catchup soon? I forget if you’re an Apple user, but I have facetime now. Later this wk? Yeah…you know, do you think it’s possible to be truly original?