17 again...

Ah, to be 17 again.
Wait. Let me rephrase that. Thank God I’m not 17 anymore.
For some reason, when you say the word seventeen, people smile. What about being 17 was pleasant? Most 17 year-olds spend their days cleaning out the bagel slicer at their crappy job, putting air in the tires of their crappy car, paying for their lunch in dimes (it took 12 of them for a Jumbo Jack), staring at their bodies in the mirror thinking it looks disgusting, when usually the most disgusting thing in the reflection is their facial expression.
17 year-olds spend their nights unraveling the gossip of the day—comparing different versions of the same story, hoping to God that no one finds out that their shoes came from Payless or that their parents can’t afford to send them on the class trip.
They stare at boys. All. Day. Long.
17 is an age of constant uneasiness. Always wondering what people are thinking about you. Assuming it must be bad. Spending $40 on a T-shirt from Abercrombie because that’s what the cool girl wears.
What the hell was wrong with us? Always trying to blend in and stay out of everyone’s way.
It is when I think about all of the nasty things that happen in high school that I am reminded of those other things. You know, the things you got in big trouble for. Despite how awkward or unpopular you are, everyone seems to find a group of a few friends to get into trouble with. Your parents don’t even notice anymore when they come in the house without knocking or open the fridge and help themselves. It is these people that you will never, ever forget because they were the ones that you were forced to pass the time with.
When you are seventeen, you aren’t allowed out on school nights, but when you figured out that the window right above the stairs to the deck doesn’t have an alarm, you made it count. These were the nights that you smoked your first cigarette, got that ridiculous speeding ticket… maybe made your way into the backseat of a car with that cute boy.
They aren’t nights that anyone is necessarily proud of, but being 17 sucks so bad that you have to find ways to have fun. This is the one time in life that doing bad things still somehow seems innocent.
It seems like the stars were brighter when I was 17. I have several memories where my friends and I were outside sitting in a circle, surrounding whatever item it was that we were not supposed to have (cigarettes, a case of beer, WEED!) and reveling in the glory of having it. The mental picture seems more like a movie set than someone’s rickety old tree house or the football field.
I remembering keeping Febreeze and mouthwash in my glove box because I really believed that it would mask the odor of whatever I had gotten into that night. I remember kissing a co-worker in the walk-in freezer at Panera Bread. I remember my girlfriends and me taking the football coach’s jeep during weightlifting class to go get Chic-Fil-A. I remember toilet papering our rival campus with my volleyball team.
I remember falling in love with Charleston on a speech and debate trip, where we snuck into an art show and sampled their fine selection of wine and cheese. Mostly just the wine.
I remember having 22 missed calls from home on prom night knowing I would be in trouble, but thinking it was worth it. I remember tipping cows (yes, we did that in Greenville) and all of us being hung-over on the way to Mr. Martin’s house the next morning to apologize. I remember laughing at the irony throughout our youth group’s Christmas play when my best friend Amanda was cast as the Virgin Mary.
Ok, so 17 had its ups and downs. It’s an odd age. You’re taken a little more seriously than when you were 16, but you still can’t buy cigarettes or porn. You have a crappy job, but your coworkers are usually your friends. You really don’t have any responsibilities other than to show up at school. Yes, there are always bitches at school. Yes, sometimes your parents suck, and at 17 you can’t do a damn thing about it. But at 17, there was no such thing as rent or utilities or credit cards or student loans.
What a simpler time?! Now, I don’t care what the girls around me are wearing. I know that gossip is worthless. I don’t care quite as much about looking cute for the boys. I can go out and come home whenever I want, if I even want to.
I am, however, 22. I have a real job and real responsibilities. I have a relationship that I am proud of. I am now a grown-up. I can’t kiss random boys in the freezer anymore. I can’t stay out playing with my friends till sunrise when I know I have appointments in the morning. I can’t get crazy speeding tickets because I pay for my insurance now.
Of course, I don’t want to do some of these things anymore. Now that I’m 5 long years wiser, I know a few things about conduct and restraint. But I am glad that God gave us sort of a grace period—a time to dip our toes into the pool of adult things without real consequence. We all thought we were just passing the time till we could get out of town and do something great. But we were learning. We were experiencing and experimenting. We were doing things that are really only acceptable if done by mindless, innocent 17 year-olds and thank God we did them.
Would I ever want to be 17 again? HELL NO. Being awkward, boy-crazy, and bad-mouthed were not things that occurred in my imagination. I am, however, glad that I took advantage of this little window of time where all we wanted to do was wave good-bye to childhood and let the good, grown-up times roll.