With a rebel yell

I've been blogging with three fabulous women for almost two years and have been enjoying all the fun topics we come up with week after week. If you want to see what we've discussed in the past, check out our posts here.

This week, Mom of Many chose the topic: As teens or young adults we all did something our parents would not have been real happy about. What did you do? Did you ever tell your parents about it?

Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock

When I was a kid and even throughout high school, I was a bit of a goody-two-shoes. I am glad I grew up in the 80's/early 90's. Hearing the stuff that teens do these days would have sent me hiding in the safety of my room if I were still that age and with the mentality I had back then. I was like "Sandra Dee." (I even thought, in the song, that not going to bed till she's legally wed meant that she wouldn't sleep in an actual bed till she got married. Yeah, I was THAT naive.) I didn't drink till I turned 21. I didn't smoke...ever. A Sweet Valley High book scared me off of even considering trying drugs. And I didn't sleep around either. (Not like I could even get a boyfriend when I was younger, but when guys took even the slightest interest in me, it freaked me out.) I swore though. My friends thought I was so innocent and hearing me swear would shock them. Yeah...I was so "rebellious" in that way.

My good girl phase ended when I started going to Rocky Horror. One week, I'm dancing around in my underwear (much to the chagrin of the girl who gave a guy oral sex in the school library the following year......she thought what I did was disgusting). Suddenly, I had found this whole group of new friends who liked me for ME. I wanted to go every week to hang out with them. In the eyes of my parents, however, I was not being safe if I went by myself, even though the people I was meeting had become friends of mine. I was also staying pretty local, as the theater was about 20 minutes away. There was one night when I had a HUGE argument with them about it. They ended up "winning" and drove me to the theater and later picked me up from The Rainbow (restaurant). That wasn't embarrassing or anything. (As a mom, I get it. As a teenager, I resented that level of protection.) After that happened, I decided to tell them I was going with friends on the weekends that I was going by myself. (There were weekends I went with friends, but not EVERY single time.)  I know that it was deceitful and I feel guilty about it almost 20 years later. However, it was the ONLY way to preserve everyone's sanity at the time. There was one weekend it almost backfired, as I stayed out WAY later than reasonable and my mom kept saying she was going to call my friend's mom to ask if it was okay with her. I managed to talk her out of doing that. Another time, that same friend who was my "alibi" almost blew my cover. Thankfully, she covered up for it.

I think there got to be a certain point where my parents threw in the towel and just let me go by myself. I don't know if they caught on that I was actually going by myself or they just realized that nothing bad was happening to me there. Of course, at the time, they didn't know about a guy who had come to the theater regularly that got arrested for murdering a girl in Wisconsin. I think I brought that up later down the road. They had nothing to worry about though, as the cast stuck together and made sure no one was alone at the theater or outside, after we found out the news. And maybe because I seemed more "innocent" in relation to everyone else, some people in the cast felt a need to be protective of me more than for others. (I "blame" that on one of the guys who told everyone that I was an innocent girl, on the night I played Janet. However, it felt nice to be cared about and looked after.)

All in all, I was a "good girl" at the show. I still didn't smoke, drink, do drugs, etc. The most that ever happened was a contact high at a cast New Year's Eve party, which probably made me crazier than anyone who actually inhaled the stuff. (NYE was the only other time I let my parents drive me to the theater, as it was snowing out really bad. I got a ride to and from the party with some friends.) I'd sometimes bring guys home to spend the night, but we didn't do anything more than sleep or talk. (One of them was gay and another time a girlfriend of mine was there too.)

I know my "karma" will eventually come when my kids become teenagers and want to go off and do their own things. I just hope that I won't have to give them a reason to rebel and that the future will be less scary than the present.