Category: Throwback Thursdays

This was me. The awkward “just turned into a teenager” 2007 me.

I honestly can’t believe that 2007 was ten years ago. 10 years ago, I was this awkward little girl who thought being a teenager was going to change everything; boys would like me, I’d start actually doing my hair in pretty braids, I would wear lip gloss, and all the other possible girly, teenager things. HA. Transitioning from being a pre-teen to a teenager wasn’t all that easy for me; I didn’t know how to deal with puberty all that well, and despite being in an honors class all three years of middle school, 7th grade was the hardest out of them all.

I will say this though; 2007 was a special year for me because it was the year that I started to identify myself as a writer. I wrote in my journals like usual, but I also explored poetry. And the rest is history. 

It wouldn’t have been such an awesome year to look back at if I didn’t experience the torment of 7th grade with these people:

Me and my group of friends were pretty inseparable. We always hanged out at lunch together and play stupid games like “Dare or Consequence” (it’s where my two best friends at the time had to kiss each other in Spanish class because one of them never wanted do any of the dares… ahem, Justin; it’s why he had to hump a tree in the school yard one time as a consequence and probably will never live it down).

We all pretty much went to the New York Hall of Science about 4 times that school year because it was seriously such a trippy place. (And I thought it was cool to take a picture of me in a cut Magic School Bus thing there… again, I was an awkward person.)

My friends meant the absolute world to me. We pretty much spent all hours of the school day hanging out and being immature and silly teenagers. Of course though, like every teenage girl, I never really had one best friend at the time. In fact, this was the first time I had two:

Lissette was my first junior high school best friend. We were a perfect balance of what friendship was; she was the goofball and laid back one, and I was the smart, sometimes too serious one. This one time, there was a food fight in the lunchroom during our period, and of course she participated in it. The lunch-aid, known to be the cross-eyed one who always used to yell at her, came over to stop her out of the dozens of people who were throwing food. Lissette being Lissette, she looked at her, and pretty much mimicked her, cross-eyed and all, and when I say I was dying of laughter… I still remember it to this day. Although we both grew out of our 7th grade selves, we still do keep in touch with one another. She’s studying to be in the medical field and I’m at least a better writer than my 2007 self.

Justin was my second best friend in junior high school. He used to hang out with all the girls in our class, because, every girl in our class thought he was cute, including me. Despite all of that, he was a typically the person I hanged with on school trips (we actually became friends when we all went to the NY Hall of Science the first out of the 8 million times we went). He was the only friend of mine who was chill and didn’t do anything crazy, which was weird knowing all the people in our group of friends were bat-shit crazy. Ten years and him being a complete foot taller later, he’s pretty much the same person, just more mature and more chill… if that’s even possible.

Despite discovering myself as a writer that year, I was also introduced to theater in a very odd way. 2007 was the first year my middle school was going to put on a musical production, and that year it was Annie Jr. Now, I’ve been a singer my whole life and for awhile it’s what I wanted to do, but because the stigma that school plays have of “not being cool”, I never auditioned for the play. What I did do though, is perform at the Talent Show my school had. Two weeks later, the director of the play had told me she saw me perform at the Talent Show and wanted me to be a part of the play last minute when one of its original cast members dropped out from the show. I said “sure why not” and there I was, being the role of “Star-To-Be”!

Despite being this newfound teenager, it meant that I thought I was old enough to finally start getting into the trends 2007 had to offer.

• Having a Myspace profile was a must and you had to learn how to search and code properly if you want a really nice looking profile layout.
• AIM was the only way to contact your friends without the awkward “is [insert friend name here] there” question you had to ask when you called their house phone.
• Scene/Emo was the look of a teenager. (I can still hear the overcrowded Hot Topic stores.)
• Akon and T-Pain literally took over the music scene, whether it was their own music or being featured in a million other songs.
• Converse were the sneakers to have if you weren’t into Nike or Jordan.
• Wearing tank tops over your t-shirts were a trend, and I still don’t know why or how that even happened.
• The LED light up belt was everyone’s favorite accessory that spelled out their names like a Bodega store front advertising “COLD DRINKS! COFFEE! CIGARETTES! SOLD HERE!”
• Everyone, and I mean everyone had a PSP.
• Everyone, and I mean everyone knew Fergie’s “Fergalicious” and Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” word-for-word.
• The Jonas Brothers were the next big thing, with their songs “Year 3000”, “Hold On”, and everyone’s favorite; “SOS”.
• Sidekick was the iPhone of 2007 basically.
• The movie Superbad came out in theaters and although I was too young to see it, I’ve seen the “Mc Lovin” upcoming attractions, and I declared my nickname as “Lizlovinnn”.

Despite the struggle I had finding myself in the midst of becoming a teenager in 2007, I sometimes forget how great the year was. I have memories that I can tell for days and pictures that captured these special random moments that were taken for granted at the time. I can’t believe it was ten years ago. To see where some of these people are now with their lives; some in college or graduating college or are now mothers and fathers to their own children, it’s insane. Ten years ago, we were all still kids. We were all young, careless and free.

We were all awkward teenagers.

-Liz (: