For the longest time, I thought that having a car defined what it meant to be a certified T-bird. To me, having a car seemed to be the epitome of the esteemed “high school experience.” The type of experience you saw in movies like The Breakfast Club, Clueless, or 10 Things I Hate About You, where everyone’s pulling up in Audi’s and Toyota hatchbacks, blasting Nirvana and other rock bands as they cruise through the city, looking for a good time. Nowadays, all of my friends have their licenses, and drive their own cars around, living their own teenage fantasies, and slowly yet surely, it seemed as if the majority of everyone around me seemed to have their Jeep Cherokee or their Pontiac Firebird. As someone who did not have a car, I began to feel isolated, like a beige 2001 Honda Accord in an exotic car show filled with Ferrari’s and Maserati’s. I became distressed, and the infrastructure of my self-worth began to crumble out from underneath me. Who even was I if I didn’t have a car?
“You still take the bus? As a sophomore?” Said my friends, “why don’t you just get a car, it’s not that hard.” These things said by my peers, along with many other jibes, made me feel like I was worthless if I didn’t have a car. Without a car, I would have no friends and no girlfriend. Why would my friends want to hang around Provo with me, when they could drive their cars around to new and exciting destinations? And girls? Screw that. In the movies the only guys who would ever get the girls were the guys who drove the nice cars, taking them out on dates and driving them through the city with the radio playing and the wind blowing through their hair. I cringed at the thought of having my parents drive me around for a date, picturing the disappointed look on my date’s face, clearly unsatisfied. It seemed as if in order to be an authentic T-bird, you needed to have a car. I slowly accepted my fate. I knew from that point on that I would never fit in and that I was doomed to be a loser for the rest of high school, all because I didn’t have a car.
At the time, I thought that getting a car was the end all be all to all of my problems, however this was not the case. Even if I did get a car, I still wouldn’t feel like I belonged. People would just find something else to tease me for, and I would be miserable again. My problem wasn’t that I didn’t have a car, my problem was that I was basing my self-worth on menial, superficial things like having a car. People didn’t like me because I didn’t have a car, people liked me because of my charisma, my achievements, and the many other things that made me who I was. It was time for me to stop being a fake version of someone else, and start being the authentic version of myself.
Sure, maybe I have a hard time feeling like I fit in. But, maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s good that we don’t always feel like we belong, because it means we’re unique. Since there’s so many drivers around Timpview, why not be a walker? Why not show to everybody that you are more than your car, and that you don’t need any of the superficial things that we high schoolers obsess over in order to be cool. Sure, having a car would be nice, but I would rather walk home from my award ceremony than drive home from my 9-5. We T-birds all have such unique talents and abilities, and we should let them shine bright, instead of letting them fade into the darkness of conformity. Let us embrace our raw, honest selves, and redefine what it truly means to be a T-Bird.
