When I began high school I was not very popular, I wasn't necessarily unpopular, but I wasn't the girl going out with the sophomores, and I didn't sit with the juniors who attended all of the big parties. It's not that I was average or plain, I had offers, but I never took them. The way I looked at it then was that I'd have time for all of that when I got older, when it would actually count, and quite frankly I felt like I was above a lot of people in my small town anyways. I don't want to seem prissy, but I was getting annoyed by everyone's lack of motivation. "Oh, I'm just going to be a hairdresser", "I'm taking up my fathers' farm.", "I'm just going to go to community college." Where was their ambition? Didn't they want to see something more than this 50 square mile cow town? I was beginning to feel claustrophobic and I was sick of seeing the same faces, and hearing the same stories. I wanted something more, something of content, something this town couldn't give me.


So I spent most of my freshman year with one of my close friends. We started attending concerts in Rochester at a venue called Water Street Music Hall. We loved the whole aura of the shows, we loved the music, and it was a great way to bond with new persona's. Those concerts were so unique and so special to me because for a few hours, me, and everyone around me, could forget everyone and everything that wasn't there. All that mattered was the music, the people, and the emotion I felt when I sang along in unison with the band. I'm not exactly sure when I decided that I would live inside a show if it was possible, but if I could make a guess, I would say it was sometime in that first year. The sparkle and shine of the music scene still attracts me, even though the awe that I first had for the bands was quickly diminished.


All week at school, I would anticipate the upcoming weekend, for yet another show, and another crowd of people. Concerts became the only thing I talked about, and I soon stopped talking to anyone from my school. Since I hadn't been keeping up with our small town high school drama and they didn't see the point in going to a concert, we had nothing to talk about.


As I went to more and more shows, I began being recognized by name by local band members. With stars in my eyes like any 14 year old girl, I eagerly agreed to hang out with them outside of concerts. To be quite honest I idolized them, these 15 and 16 year old boys with electric guitars and microphones. In my head they were poets as great as Shakespeare and in their free time they philosophized like Aristotle. But they were none of those things, they were just regular teenage boys who knew how to make music. They had girlfriends with petty drama, they watched cartoons, they made "That's what she said" jokes, and as soon as I realized this, the dazzle of everything I thought I knew was gone.


Now, when I look back, their music wasn't that great, and there was nothing that made them very original. But I still look back on time with them fondly, because the whole experience molded who I became. As a young girl I had put these people on a pedestal and once I realized that they weren't what I wanted them to be, I was disappointed. But we all have to be faced with disappointment, and sometimes we don't look at the real picture, we look at what we want it to be ideally. That was when I began to balance the two out. Realism and idealism, which I decided I needed both of to be successful. Also, I concluded that I had put too much pride in myself, thinking that I was better than the people from the town where I was raised. They weren't much different from the people I met in Rochester, and me looking down on them for their goals was childish. So what if they didn't want to go to college? If they decided they wanted to start a hair salon, who was I to say that their aspirations were foolish? Maybe they thought I was foolish for wanting to get a degree. Truthfully, I know when I leave for college I will miss this town. I have grown closer to my classmates after I realized my arrogance had kept me from having relationships with them, but that's not going to hold me back from what I want. I'll reminisce about this small town with tenderness, but look to my future with a newfound hope and eagerness.