Teenage Dream

As I was doing my aimless net surfing, I suddenly remembered Boyce Avenue and how I loved their covers. So I visited their Youtube channel and came across their version of Katy Perry's Teenage Dream.



The piano-accompanied version made me reflect and look back on my years as a teen. High school in particular. What was my teenage dream then? I can only think of one thing: to be a writer. What I would be in the future. I wasn't thinking of how my crush would notice me because in the first place, I didn't have one in our all-girls school (I had a crush on a drummer who belonged to a band who played in our school when I was a sophomore. But that's it. The "crush" feeling vanished soon enough). I wasn't thinking of who my prom date would be because we didn't have a prom. All those scenes in a typical American high school movie - pretty cheerleaders, cute basketball players, proms - we didn't have them in our school. So I was left with nothing to think about but my writing, academics, the school paper, piano lessons, and my friends who are different.

If I were to place my friends and I in a social pyramid, I could say we were at the second to the bottom tier. We weren't losers, but we weren't popular. We weren't weird, but we were different. We would spend mornings beside the Chemistry Lab to review (if we had a test that day) or simply to talk about school, puppy love, musings, and things that we love. We were the type who would voluntarily sit at the front row of the bus during field trips when everyone else would prefer to sit at the back.

With true friends like them, I didn't feel there was anything missing in my high school life. But to be honest, I would've wanted us to have a prom. I would've wanted to dress up and see my friends all dressed up as well for a special night like prom. And had I truly liked someone then, I would've wanted to go to the prom with him, and we would dance a slow, romantic dance. Sweet. And that's the teenage dream I would secretly think of.

Well of course it didn't happen, and looking back, I can only wish it did. I once told my boyfriend that we didn't have a prom in high school and that I had never danced with anyone. So during our office Christmas Party, when the band was playing rock, upbeat tunes, and everyone was dancing their heads off on the dance floor, he danced with me. "Eh kasi hindi mo pa yun nae-experience, di ba?" (Because you haven't experienced it, right?), he said. So there. My first dance with somebody. It wasn't the slow, romantic dance I wanted in high school, but that dance is more than the fulfillment of my secret teenage dream. It's a dance with the one I love.