I wish I didn’t care so much. Other people do whatever they want and whatever they feel like doing. They don’t think about the consequences and they deal with the problems as they come. I, on the other hand, over think everything. Peer pressure didn’t really get a hold on me until earlier this year. I didn’t go to parties and experiment my freshmen year like many of my friends. I rarely stayed out past curfew or drove with an illegal number of people in my car when I got my temps. When I did do these things, I ALWAYS got caught. I can only remember a few times when I’ve gotten away with anything.
The problem is that my dad is an expert at tricking me into confessing what I’d done. Even when he has no clue if I really had done anything or not, somehow I always manage to give in. I remember one time, my friend Maddy came to visit from Burlington. We wanted to go pick up my friend Rachel because we were all going to our school’s musical that night. I only had my temps and was only allowed to drive with one other person in the car. No one was home and it was only a five-minute drive so I decided to break the rules just this once! We pick her up and drive straight back to my house. We pull in the driveway, and my dad’s car is in its spot. I try not to panic. Quickly, we make up a cover story incase he asks how we got there. When he did ask me, I told him that Rachel’s mom just dropped her off. And that at the same exact time Maddy and I were just getting back from buying our tickets for the musical. After questioning me for five minutes, I just cave in and admit that I went to pick up Rachel with Maddy already in the car. The good thing is, my Dad is pretty cool once I tell him the truth. It was satisfaction enough for him to know that he had conned me into owning up.
One other account was from this past summer. My friend and I took the bus from the park-and-ride in Delafield to Milwaukee. We were hanging out with a girl who lived there and all planned on going to Summerfest later that night. Before leaving for the musical festivities, we made a pepperoni pizza. I was thirsty so I went in the fridge to see what they had to drink. In the refrigerator door, were three strawberry wine coolers. My friend said we could each have one just to go with our meal. I was not convinced. In the back of my head was an alarm screaming, “You’ll get caught. You always do!” and I truly believe that so I said no. She then went on to say that her Dad lets her drink them at dinner all the time and they won’t care. I fought back for a good five minutes but eventually was lead to believe it wasn’t a big deal. Drinking is bad. Duh, who doesn’t know that. However, we weren’t drinking to get drunk or to make a scene. We each drank one strawberry wine cooler with our pepperoni pizza, while watching Friends, in a time span of over an hour. Not a big deal.
After that, we were ready to go to the Summerfest grounds. She only lived a few blocks away so we just walked there. We reached the grounds and wandered around from concert to concert. Hours passed and before we knew it, it was time to go back home. The one friend went back to her house and my friend and I got on the bus to go back to Delafield. On the bus ride home, I got a text from our friend warning us that her Dad was really pissed off about us drinking the wine coolers. All I could think was, I knew it. Minutes after receiving her text, I got a call from her dad. Great. I forgot to mention that her dad is a lawyer and has always seemed extremely intimidating to me. All he said was “don’t ever do this in my house again” and then he asked for my dad’s phone number. Fantastic. He’s going to call my father after eleven o’clock at night and tell him that I had been drinking and then went to Summerfest and then planned on driving home. It all sounded so horrible when you said it like that. Because I was the one that drove to Delafield, I was the one held responsible. My other friend didn’t even get a call from her dad, or to her parents. Of course, my Dad called me minutes later, enraged. He was more upset that I was driving “while drunk”. To be honest, I didn’t even feel anything even immediately after drinking the stupid bottle. And we had been walking around for hours after consuming it. Somehow, in my mind it didn’t even seem like I had done anything wrong. But none of that mattered to my dad so I was grounded for the week after.
So I guess I have reasoning for caring so much. Someone once told me that sometimes being caught is the best thing that can happen to you. One other thing that stops me from doing things the average teenager would do, is the fact that I have a strong faith and don’t want to let God down. I’m not going to go on and on about my feelings and my religious views but it is something that is constantly on my mind. At my youth group, the topics are always related to teens and so temptation gets brought up constantly. I’m a youth leader so I feel like I have even more responsibility to say no and walk away.
This year, I went to a party and told myself I wasn’t going to drink and was only staying for a little bit. And I actually had a legitimate excuse because I chose to drive everyone just incase I was tempted. One of my best friends was trying to get me to take a shot but I told her no. I actually remember saying, “You don’t understand. I’m a youth leader. I can’t.” This was her response: “You know what I do? I just go to church the next morning and ask for forgiveness.” Wow, really? That’s not how it works. You don’t do things, knowing you’ll have to ask for forgiveness the whole time you’re doing it. You ask for strength to say no and to avoid things like this.
Drinking and partying seems fun but it’s all temporary. I guess part of me wishes I never cared and were free to do whatever I wanted with out thinking twice. Something tells me though, that all the popular kids who get wasted every weekend won’t have one good memory of high school and all their friends will end up turning on them. It won’t end well. After writing this paper, I think I realize that it makes me a better person. I can be carefree in my own way. I can not worry or care what others think but still care about myself.