Juno
Posted
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 11:09 AM
On Friday afternoon I watched "Juno". It was phenomenal. And startling reminded me a little too much of what it was like for me to be 15.
My family can be a bit fanatical when it comes to religion. Not as bad as some people I've known, but they're pretty religious. When I was 15, I had a big crush on a boy in my confirmation class. We started 'dating' and over the summer, a friend of mine convinced me that I should have sex with him. So, all throughout that summer, he would sneak over to my house in the middle of the night and have sex. It was such a ridiculous notion that I still can't believe I ever did it. But a lot of times, he'd also come over just to get away from his house. He was also depressed and many times said he was going to kill himself. Once I had to chase after him to keep him from jumping in the river, I had to hide my keys because he'd try to slit his wrist with them. Then one night my dad heard us talking and came downstairs and flipped out. We both explained to my parents that he was depressed and my parents immediately called his parents. It got pretty ugly because his parents didn't believe mine. Well, right before school started I got freaked out that I was pregnant and wrote him a letter about it. A lot of our letters were pretty personal and talking about our true feelings about our families and whatnot. His mom found it, his parents screamed at him, they made a bazillion photocopies and then called my parents. It was the most awkward time of my life. Especially when we had to go over there and talk. They brought up several points of my letters describing how much I didn't like my dad and then my parents were like "Yeah, your son wants to kill himself and you don't care." Anyhow, at the end of it all, his parents made the rule that we weren't allowed to see each other until after highschool. Which was stupid because my parents were just going to say we weren't allowed to be alone with each other ever. But whatever. For a few months we snuck to each other's schools (I went to a Catholic highschool, he went to the public school) and by Christmas just stopped seeing each other. I never was pregnant either by the way.
So, when I watched this movie on Friday, I felt so jarred by it. My boyfriend at the time was a tall lanky boy who was in cross country and track and was just as awkward. His mom always didn't really like me. But also as I watched the movie, I think I would have been like Juno had I ever gotten pregnant and had to go through that. Another thought that struck me as I watched it is I wonder how many other people watched the movie and reminisced about their own stupid mistakes back then.
I've been tempted to write to my ex-boyfriend's parents and tell them that I'm sorry for being such a dumb kid and that they were right. But that feeling always passes with the thought that what would the point be? Then I wonder what I would tell my own kids if this ever happened to them.