Reconnect: The Story of an old flame

Part 3: What's in a misfit?

May 2002

When you're young, it's all you can do to try and fit in. I never did. I never could and it did always feel like I was some alien, a different species. Even among my friends it was like I was only pretending to feel like I was a part of the group. I used to watch how other people seemed to interact with each other so seamlessly and I wished that I could belong somewhere like that. My abandonment issues, I suppose.

While Kelly and Jen were off in their own world, discovering the high school world as teenage girls should, I had attached myself to a small group of girls who were known as sort of... misfits. Weirdos. Dorks. We were prudish, naive girls who never lied about what they were doing and never once thought about breaking the rules. Our biggest sin was that we were infinitely unmotivated when it came to band.

Ah Yes, we were in band- the four of us clarinet players and the four of us total slack offs. We never practiced, we never went to sectionals and more than once we found ourselves following a cute boy around instead of attending a concert. We never marched either, they always had us in as 3rd or 4th alternates. I highly doubt anyone really liked us. We were lazy, we didn't love to play like the other students and we didn't exhibit any of that famous pride the other band students wore like badges. We were just four awkward and strange little girls who occasionally toyed with music.

Still, that was how I met Jake. In band.

Saying when I met him is kind of hard to say so, and so usually I will just say in high school. I believe our first actual interaction was when I was 15 and I got accidentally dragged into that meeting but the truth is- I'd seen him around. Especially since our friend, Mimi, who was not quite a member of our misfit group but still hung out with us all the time, would never stop talking about him. She'd catch up with us during lunch, or in between classes, or during band and tell us about what he did or what he said.

It almost felt inadequate to say she had a huge crush on him. We didn't understand why- when we looked at him, we didn't see much. While my friends might say he was bad looking or an asshole, I could only think one thing: how scary and mean he looked. He did. He looked like he was down right mean. In the two years since I'd started high school, I'd made sure to stay out of the drumline's way- they just looked like the mean kind, sort of elitist and there was all types of rumors about them.

Of course, I naively believed it all. Yes, Jake was on the drumline and he played the snare drum... and from what I knew or what Mimi said he was really good. She also told us how he was sort of a player, which we knew was true since he was always around the most pretty girls, and she told us he was kind of a dick. Yeah, right- what's so appealing? Mimi mentioned he was funny but was that really enough when she painted such a poor picture of him? I supposed there must be a whole other side to him I didn't know, after all- Mimi was the one who interacted with him more. She was in the percussion section too.

When it comes to high school band dynamics, you have to know that while both the drumline and the pit(stationary, non marching instruments) are considered percussion, there is a huge difference between the two and how they get along. At our school, at that time, it seemed like the drumline could get away with anything and so this made those rowdy boys, at least to my group of misfit friends, all more unlikeable. Still, we didn't dwell, we didn't have to deal with them and so they were not our problem.

I remember the day of the meeting though- during the last week of our sophomore year. I was in the band hall with Brenda and Meg, my two partners in crime and fellow misfits, and we were chatting about something silly and nonsensical.

"Hold on, I have to get my clarinet or Mr. Michaels will flip out on me." I said with a chuckle. It was well known I usually never took that thing home to practice. The four of us lived very nearby and so we walked home together almost every day.