Music Man, More Labs, and Some Things I’d Like to Say to my 14-year-old Self

I went back to the animation lab to work on my project again today. All of the animation labs are named after various studios, but the only one that’s set aside for the pre-major is a dinky little five-computer lab: The Dreamworks lab! (is this a diss on dreamworks? I’ll never know.) All of the computers are named after Dreamworks characters. I work on the one named Toothless, and my friends I’m most frequently in there with work on Oogway and Moses respectively.

The Lab is a really great time. Today the residents were me, a girl from Mexico, and a girl from Korea. Our broken knowledge of each other’s languages led to the conversation taking on a telephone-like structure. The spanish-speaking girl knew some korean due to being a kpop stan, and I understand spanish just fine. Anyone listening in would be baffled by our communications. It was awesome. We wanted to listen to some music, and it turns out we all had one band in common: ABBA. It was even more awesome. There is no bonding experience like struggling through various 3D software programs while everyone sings Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) in English, Spanish, and Korean all at once.

Then, mom picked me up and I got to go with the family to watch the Hale Center Theater’s production of Music Man. It was fantastic! Very funny and well-performed. The only thing I didn’t like was the scene where Professor Hill gets a little too touchy with the Librarian in an attempt to forcibly woo her, and my hands got all sweaty and my stomach wouldn’t stop dropping. (But not in a good way.) Mom and I spent some time talking about it on the way home, where she was understanding and I kind of abashedly ran my finger on the grooves of my student ID, where the card swiper has made marks in the plastic. It’s a weird thing to talk about.

I don’t do well with sudden breaks in my boundaries, at least not when it comes to unfamiliar men.

A fair warning to any and all readers: I am going to talk about something uncomfortable and personal now. That’s the beauty of a blog, I guess. (?)

That is all the fault of some idiot way, way back in eighth grade, who spent the better part of that year petting my hair, rubbing my shoulder, and…well, groping me. A lot.

Anyway, thanks to other various factors during that year, it left a lasting impression on me that I didn’t realize. That is, until he showed up in my Film Lit class senior year of high school, sat next to me, and promptly gave me a panic attack.

This is a good side note, though: my English teacher, Mr. Saxton, was not about to let that happen. I emailed him, just to let him know the situation and that I would greatly appreciate if he could try to prevent him from sitting by me again. He emailed me immediately and told me that he would be sure of it. The very next day, when the loser tried to sit next to me, Mr. Saxton leapt up from his desk, grabbed the back of his desk, and physically dragged the entire desk, chair, and clown away from me. When he was met with a baffled and frightened look, all he said was “you can’t sit there.” Mr. Saxton, you were an amazing teacher and I will never forget what you did for me.

So. Point being, after that, my old fears kind of crept back in. I don’t want them to: lending credence to irrational fears is how you lend them power. That’s part of why I’m writing them down: I’ve noticed that once I put something to paper—or screen, as it were—they don’t linger in my brain nearly as much. We’ll try it.

But there are certainly things I’d like to go back and tell my 14-year-old self. Firstly, I’d like to go back and give her a huge hug, and just say “Stick around, dummy!” (I think she would. She was sad, but 14-year-old-Anna was still trying her best.) Then I would tell her all of the amazing things we would get to do. Then I’d tell her that what had happened wasn’t her fault, and I am so sorry that our Woodshop teacher did nothing to stop it, even though we told him multiple times. I’d show her that we’d made it into the animation pre-major, (which is further than she thought we would get) and I’d point to our family and show her how close we’ve gotten. Then I think I’d shake her shoulders really hard and go “GET A TRAZODONE PRESCRIPTION RIGHT NOW BECAUSE YOU’RE ABOUT TO EMBARK ON ONE HELL OF A MEDICAL JOURNEY AND YOU WILL NEED THAT SLEEP PILL LIKE MANA FROM HEAVEN OK!?”

That medical journey is worth a different post all its own, but I don’t feel like writing about that right now.

I’m just going to leave it at this: the past can be a weird place, but dwelling on it will only make it weirder. I don’t think that event left scars on me, per se, but it certainly left a bruise, and I’m still trying to teach myself to stop pushing on it just to see if it still hurts. It’ll heal in time, I have no doubt. My main goal is to just be someone who is still doing her best, still making time and reasons to smile, and still investing as much time in my family as I can. Somehow I made it through the lowest point in my life so far and I can still look back and feel nothing but compassion and love for that awkward, weird little person I was. If I can keep doing my best, I think 24-year-old-Anna, 30-year-old Anna, and maybe even 40-year-old Anna will be able to look back at 19-year-old Anna and feel the same way.

Anyway. I’m off to bed, because I learned my lesson about sleep once, and I’ll never forget it!

November 11, 2023