raisedbymoogles (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
raisedbymoogles) wrote2015-07-16 10:59 pm
raisedbymoogles) wrote2015-07-16 10:59 pm
Entry tags:
Call it a creative writing exercise.
Songfic? RPF-but-not-really? Is there an Avril section on AO3? (I'm a little frightened to find out.)
(TW: two instances of a common gendered slur. Also probably going to get a certain 90s pop song stuck in your head.)
*
He was a sk8er boi, I said see you l8er boi -
-and now everyone thinks they know my story.
Avril got the basic story more or less straight - I did ballet, I wore Abercrombie just like the rest of my friends, and in junior year I turned down a guy in a leather jacket and artfully ripped jeans - just as much a poser in his own way, but who isn't in high school? - for Homecoming. We had a couple classes together, so it wasn't like he was just this stranger coming on to me out of nowhere. And no, I didn't have a boyfriend, and yes, I wanted a date for Homecoming. Just not him.
Our lives diverged, as in a yellow wood. He became a famous musician, and I had a couple of failed relationships and a baby.
Isn't it funny how society thinks of single motherhood as a punishment? My daughter is two now, and she's so bright and sweet and vivacious - my little actress. We're doing okay, the two of us, now that I have a steady job and she's got other kids to play with at day care. But, I get sneers when I go to Wal-Mart, walking around with a kid and no ring. I stopped going to my church after someone told my baby I was going to hell. And now the whole world exists to tell me that I got what I deserved for being a stuck-up preppy bitch.
Avril thinks she has my life all figured out, but it was only by pure luck she got that part right. I never saw her sk8er boy again after graduation, and of course we didn't have any friends in common. Whatever he told her about me, there was no way he could have known I had a baby. Getting knocked up is just sort of the go-to disgrace for the girl who thought she was too good for him.
Imagine. My daughter, a punishment - a disgrace. I chose to have her, you know. I didn't choose single motherhood, God knows it's hard in a lot of ways, but I could have had an abortion and I didn't. And I love her, more fiercely than I will ever love any man, and you can say what you will about me but if you try to suggest that my baby is anything less than wonderful I will show you what ballet-trained thighs can do to vertebrae. I take kung fu now, you smug bitch.
...pull that thought back. Negativity into the earth to be cleansed, forgiveness out into the universe...
Forgiveness is a little difficult some days, to be honest. Maybe it'll be easier when her popularity fades. As it is I pretty much only listen to country or classical anymore.
The whole point of the song, of course, is to make me wonder what would have happened if I'd taken the road less traveled by. Would it have been a whirlwind romance straight out of West Side Story? Would I be living in the lap of luxury, never having to serve coffee a day in my life? Would I be just as famous as he was? I'll never know. I'll tell you what I do know I would've been - unhappy. I didn't like him that way. I was never attracted to him.
That's the one thing you didn't get right about me, Avril.
What was wrong with him? Well - nothing I can point to. Was I letting my friends dictate which boys were good enough for me? Maybe. As another wildly popular musical act put it - if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends. (See, I can quote more than Robert Frost.) Was I doing something wrong in not giving him a chance? I don't think so. You don't need a good enough reason to turn a boy down. You can be selfish. You can value the opinion of your friend over the opinion of the guy asking you out, who is, after all, just as biased. You don't owe someone something just because they'd like to get in your pants. That's the biggest lesson I want to pass down to my daughter when she's older. Your heart is your own, and your happiness is more important than the fleeting regard of a sixteen-year-old on a skateboard. Even if he does play guitar.
What more can I say?
Oh - and I did go to one of his concerts once, before my daughter was born and before he hit it big. But somehow I never made it to one of hers.
(TW: two instances of a common gendered slur. Also probably going to get a certain 90s pop song stuck in your head.)
*
He was a sk8er boi, I said see you l8er boi -
-and now everyone thinks they know my story.
Avril got the basic story more or less straight - I did ballet, I wore Abercrombie just like the rest of my friends, and in junior year I turned down a guy in a leather jacket and artfully ripped jeans - just as much a poser in his own way, but who isn't in high school? - for Homecoming. We had a couple classes together, so it wasn't like he was just this stranger coming on to me out of nowhere. And no, I didn't have a boyfriend, and yes, I wanted a date for Homecoming. Just not him.
Our lives diverged, as in a yellow wood. He became a famous musician, and I had a couple of failed relationships and a baby.
Isn't it funny how society thinks of single motherhood as a punishment? My daughter is two now, and she's so bright and sweet and vivacious - my little actress. We're doing okay, the two of us, now that I have a steady job and she's got other kids to play with at day care. But, I get sneers when I go to Wal-Mart, walking around with a kid and no ring. I stopped going to my church after someone told my baby I was going to hell. And now the whole world exists to tell me that I got what I deserved for being a stuck-up preppy bitch.
Avril thinks she has my life all figured out, but it was only by pure luck she got that part right. I never saw her sk8er boy again after graduation, and of course we didn't have any friends in common. Whatever he told her about me, there was no way he could have known I had a baby. Getting knocked up is just sort of the go-to disgrace for the girl who thought she was too good for him.
Imagine. My daughter, a punishment - a disgrace. I chose to have her, you know. I didn't choose single motherhood, God knows it's hard in a lot of ways, but I could have had an abortion and I didn't. And I love her, more fiercely than I will ever love any man, and you can say what you will about me but if you try to suggest that my baby is anything less than wonderful I will show you what ballet-trained thighs can do to vertebrae. I take kung fu now, you smug bitch.
...pull that thought back. Negativity into the earth to be cleansed, forgiveness out into the universe...
Forgiveness is a little difficult some days, to be honest. Maybe it'll be easier when her popularity fades. As it is I pretty much only listen to country or classical anymore.
The whole point of the song, of course, is to make me wonder what would have happened if I'd taken the road less traveled by. Would it have been a whirlwind romance straight out of West Side Story? Would I be living in the lap of luxury, never having to serve coffee a day in my life? Would I be just as famous as he was? I'll never know. I'll tell you what I do know I would've been - unhappy. I didn't like him that way. I was never attracted to him.
That's the one thing you didn't get right about me, Avril.
What was wrong with him? Well - nothing I can point to. Was I letting my friends dictate which boys were good enough for me? Maybe. As another wildly popular musical act put it - if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends. (See, I can quote more than Robert Frost.) Was I doing something wrong in not giving him a chance? I don't think so. You don't need a good enough reason to turn a boy down. You can be selfish. You can value the opinion of your friend over the opinion of the guy asking you out, who is, after all, just as biased. You don't owe someone something just because they'd like to get in your pants. That's the biggest lesson I want to pass down to my daughter when she's older. Your heart is your own, and your happiness is more important than the fleeting regard of a sixteen-year-old on a skateboard. Even if he does play guitar.
What more can I say?
Oh - and I did go to one of his concerts once, before my daughter was born and before he hit it big. But somehow I never made it to one of hers.