An Awesome Failure
If only my parents had gotten me this book in junior high, I would have known how to pray my way to AWESOME with devotionals for teens.
I was not an awesome teenager. I didn't even make it to cool. I was pretty damn awkward, which was probably the reason I gave up believing in God. (Come to think of it, the same probably goes for the Tooth Fairy, which is why I'm not only not awesome, but have such bad teeth.) It pains me to think what a better life I could be living right now. But instead of enriching my impressionable mind with wholesome, adolescent devotionals, my parents transferred me to public school and filled in the void of catechism classes by subscribing to cable t.v. in the naive, vain hopes that I would watch the Catholic channel.
Instead, I watched the Daily Show, and just look at the mess I've made of my life--especially when you hold me up next to the much cooler girls who made it all the way through. Opus Dei school. They support the quiverful movement and pray for Congress to overturn Roe v. Wade so we can all be blessed with a bouquet of snotty noses gobbling up our time, energy and money. Those that haven't found love have blissful careers, currently unemployed by the investment banks that dumped them during the crash of Aught Eight. And here I am, spending all of my waking hours at a job I love, trying to get South Americans (read: future illegal immigrants) to stop dying from cancer, working on a degree I love to get kids in Africa and South Asia (read: future terrorists) to stop being filled with worms, and with the Object (read: current and longtime heathen), who cooks me dinner so I can have time to do the aforementioned. If only I'd prayed more, I could be saved from the miserable dregs of my wicked, wretched life and be AWESOME.
Oh, and check out that guy on the cover with whom I would join in the company of AWESOME! I bet his name is Chad. Look at him there, leading his youth group in prayer at the public school. He's like the new Jesus. Better, in fact - there's no WAY Jesus could have drawn in that many multicultural tokens in one sitting.* I bet they're talking about abstinence. I bet this book could even be used as the new healthcare policy. Every copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves needs to be replaced with this. Immediately.
Please, don't let another generation of children suffer the pain I live now.
N.B. The subtext here is that my parents did NOT want to send me to Catholic school, they just ran out of options when the Opus Dei school let loose with the hardcore crazy. And my mom is not thrilled with the adult I've become, whatwith my sinful, East Coast liberal agenda, my going to yoga instead of Mass on Sunday mornings, my one cat and zero children, and most especially the fact that the Object and I aren't going to validate our partnership with a marriage license. But don't you worry for me, because I'm informed that she and her three cats pray for me regularly, so that one day, I too, be bonded in sacred union with a guy like Chad. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
*Please note the conspicuous absence of any vaguely Middle Eastern looking tokens, the irony, of course being that Jesus was from the Middle East.
I was not an awesome teenager. I didn't even make it to cool. I was pretty damn awkward, which was probably the reason I gave up believing in God. (Come to think of it, the same probably goes for the Tooth Fairy, which is why I'm not only not awesome, but have such bad teeth.) It pains me to think what a better life I could be living right now. But instead of enriching my impressionable mind with wholesome, adolescent devotionals, my parents transferred me to public school and filled in the void of catechism classes by subscribing to cable t.v. in the naive, vain hopes that I would watch the Catholic channel.Instead, I watched the Daily Show, and just look at the mess I've made of my life--especially when you hold me up next to the much cooler girls who made it all the way through. Opus Dei school. They support the quiverful movement and pray for Congress to overturn Roe v. Wade so we can all be blessed with a bouquet of snotty noses gobbling up our time, energy and money. Those that haven't found love have blissful careers, currently unemployed by the investment banks that dumped them during the crash of Aught Eight. And here I am, spending all of my waking hours at a job I love, trying to get South Americans (read: future illegal immigrants) to stop dying from cancer, working on a degree I love to get kids in Africa and South Asia (read: future terrorists) to stop being filled with worms, and with the Object (read: current and longtime heathen), who cooks me dinner so I can have time to do the aforementioned. If only I'd prayed more, I could be saved from the miserable dregs of my wicked, wretched life and be AWESOME.
Oh, and check out that guy on the cover with whom I would join in the company of AWESOME! I bet his name is Chad. Look at him there, leading his youth group in prayer at the public school. He's like the new Jesus. Better, in fact - there's no WAY Jesus could have drawn in that many multicultural tokens in one sitting.* I bet they're talking about abstinence. I bet this book could even be used as the new healthcare policy. Every copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves needs to be replaced with this. Immediately.
Please, don't let another generation of children suffer the pain I live now.
N.B. The subtext here is that my parents did NOT want to send me to Catholic school, they just ran out of options when the Opus Dei school let loose with the hardcore crazy. And my mom is not thrilled with the adult I've become, whatwith my sinful, East Coast liberal agenda, my going to yoga instead of Mass on Sunday mornings, my one cat and zero children, and most especially the fact that the Object and I aren't going to validate our partnership with a marriage license. But don't you worry for me, because I'm informed that she and her three cats pray for me regularly, so that one day, I too, be bonded in sacred union with a guy like Chad. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
*Please note the conspicuous absence of any vaguely Middle Eastern looking tokens, the irony, of course being that Jesus was from the Middle East.
posted by The Goo at 8:36 AM
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