H is for the Hold Steady. (And also high school.)

Citrus | The Hold Steady

High school was a weird time for me. I had friends, and I suppose people liked me well enough, but I was not popular. Most of my circle of friends were worlds away from me, dabbling in drugs and sex and alcohol. I didn't touch any of it. I wasn't an outsider because of this, but I was the awkward appendage of the group. As much as I wanted to be accepted fully, I couldn't. I worked too much, my parents did not let me go out as often as I liked, I felt shy when it came to those things. But I wasn't perfect, of course, and this made me feel apart from my church friends. I didn't know where I fit.

The thing is, I still don't. I've carved out a little hole for myself in this group of church friends, simultaneously distancing myself from the few that stuck with me through high school. But the fit is awkward, like a pair of jeans that don't sit quite right.

I bring this up right now, under this song, because it reminds me of one of the few places I felt right in. But I guess it was not so much a place as a person and a time when we had no secrets from each other, when we could tell each other anything, talked every single day, without any pretense or awkwardness. It reminds me of when we laughed, back before we learned what the weight of the world really felt like, back when we were really just beginning to learn about ourselves.