fourteen: with braces
December 14, 2008
My chicken legs proudly showed off my knobby knees. The braces on my teeth changed color each month to match the upcoming holiday. I wore my bangs really high, with way too much hairspray.
I always did my homework on time and I aced every test.
I played volleyball, but only because I went to a tiny Christian school and they needed players. I lack(ed) any sense of sporting ability.
I had one close friend; we could often be found harmonizing DC Talk’s “Lean on Me” together.
I loved God deeply and I had a heart for missions. I went on my first mission trip that summer and it changed my life. Forever.
What were you like at fourteen?
14: Wow! Waaaaay different than I was today.
I also had braces and bangs teased up too high! Thank goodness one year later they were both gone. I played volleyball, basketball, and softball. I dated the wrong type of guys and rebelled against everything I knew to be right.
Thank God for mercy, grace, and forgiveness!!!
(I’m the first comment. I don’t think thats ever happened Yeah!)
@ 14… I had braces. I looked like a child but I was living much older. I was stuck. Confused. Plainly said… I was in WAY over my head.
Much like Amy, I was in way over my head….although I had just accepted Christ the year before, I had no idea what that even meant as nobody was disciplining me. So I was just discovering boys and myself and the spiral of emotions began…
My story sounds like yours a bit.
I was totally involved in youth group, and a good student. Missions was my biggest desire.
I was most proud of my Teen Mania t-shirts and African animals sweatshirt.
I turned 14 in Botswana, the summer I met you. I was 14 when we were in DC, I was 14 when we left for Botswana round 2.
I’d say it was a pretty good year. :)
@14 just got my braces off.
You aced your tests and finished all your homework??
Where were you when I needed you? Oh you were 2. :)
School was ok, I ran track and crosscountry.
I smoked for the very first time in Freddie’s barn.
Oh, you know…
Green sweat pants and sweat shirts.
Loved to annoy the snot of yellow birds.
Watched Star Trek with a big bowl of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough almost every night.
Started to get a desire to write, and began to put my ideas down on paper, now that I look back at them, they all sucked!
Was the sound guy at church, but only because no one else would do it.
Just to name a few.
andrew — oh the green sweats…!!!
I am glad we met NOW as opposed to when we were 14. ;-) I would have loved you, but I’m not sure I could say you would have loved me. Although we both had braces at 14. There’s a similarity!
At 14 I was probably hanging on the arm of the current boyfriend, shoving homework under my bed, trying to find the perfect shirt so my womanlies would look their best in order for the boys to notice me. *sigh*
I’m happy to say I grew out of that phase, however, not without some hard lessons learned. ;-)
I love you. I laughed out loud when I read that part about DCTalk. I loved that album. haha! I STILL have it!
Wow, of the commenters here, isn’t it sad how many of us let our desire to be noticed by boys have an affect on who we were and what we did?
Makes my heart sad.
yeah. we might not have been friends back then. that’s okay – that’s what niel and i always say about us!
i’m so glad you and i are friends now!
Oh man, I was such a dork, but getting a little better……. The braces came off that year (yup, had HEADGEAR and the Braces Are Beautiful T-shirt that I’d wear with PRIDE, thank you very much), and I also got contacts for the first time, which was a big deal. I always had my head in a book (fiction, not for studying), and was trying to grow my eyebrows back (I’d shaved them mostly off instead of plucking them, oy). Boys weren’t on my radar yet (and vice versa, for sure). The next year was the big year, as far as change (both good and bad).
I’m always amazed when I hear about those who grew up knowing the Lord and had parents and friends that knew and talked about Him and Christian things, that people had dreams like missions growing up…. I never heard about anything like that, since I wasn’t saved until I was 25. Nobody every witnessed to me in those years, but I have to believe some prayed for me. :)
Okay, your making my brain work way too hard … that was 30 years ago! Phew! Seems like yesterday. :) I was on swim team and played water polo … our team stunk, so we just had a great time. I had just gotten my braces off and was being noticed by boys. I went on my first date and forgot to unlock the door on the other side … embarassing! We moved in the middle of the year to a way-too-small town (from a class of over 500 to 82), so at the end of fourteen I was in culture shock and wanting desperately to win a friend and approval … beginning of some very, very poor decisions and low self-esteem.
Oh, if I could know then what I know now, I would do it so differently … but then, that is part of what makes me me today and one of the reasons I am so madly in love with my Jesus!
Oh the memories! What, no picutre? I think you need to find a picutre – I have one in mind. Bangs, braces, and a sweater – you were wearing a sweater. LOL, oh, the memories – held close in my heart.
If you think you looked geeky at 14, you should have seen me!!! Skinny skinny, flat-chested,and with a stupid “page boy” hairstyle. No braces, but did need them! And introverted beyond words.
Did you know that about me?
lisa – a “braces are beautiful” t-shirt? shaved off your eyebrows? you are cracking me up today!
mamma — thankfully i don’t have any pictures of my 14-year-old self handy! and yeah, i knew you were really introverted back then. and wasn’t your hair cut like whats-her-name hamil?
Oh yeah, I was a mess!! lol And get this: That was all the year BEFORE the scoliosis brace came on the scene!! I’m not kidding.
I’m telling ya, it helped develop my sense of humor, that’s for sure……… :)
(Glad I could help crack you up today!)
oh my cow, girl!
I was in eighth grade and I wanted to start drivers training cause at 14 and 9 months you can start in michigan. except my parents wouldn’t let me.
and i went to scotland that year to see my moms side of the family.
i love the mental picture i just got of 14-year-old marc in a skirt!
Wow.. coming back to all these comments made me smile. I guess there’s no one that has crooked teeth huh?
yeah – all of us in one room together would’ve been a commercial for orthodontics!
I was depressed and felt insecure and didn’t seem to fit anywhere. I am so glad those teen years are long gone! At the end of 14, I gave my life to Christ so that part was good and the most significant.
knowing you got saved that year is so incredible!
can I remember that far back???? Let’s see….when I was 14…I was an honor student who didn’t do her homework (or did I read one complete book all through highschool :)), struggled through German class, had big hair and wanted more than anything to be in ESC- the sorority in my high school….funny times!
I was a gangly little girl with braces (no holiday theme here…Only my favorite colors.) and I put my hair up every single day. Gym was probably the best class in the free world, and I’d need to have my hair up to beat everybody around me.
I swam six days a week, and wore Jesus-ish shirts that I got made fun of once for wearing.
Since I was in eight grade, I pretty much ruled the school. The truth is, I was always kind of a dork, but I never actually realized it. I was content with having the friends I was. I didn’t need a million.
i was boy crazy and listening to my favorite band, The Police. i think i shoplifted once too.
great year!
I finally got rid of the glasses so they dropped the “four eyes” from my nickname. Now I was just a “freckled frog.” I was the shortie of the school enduring constant teasing.
Loved choir! Spent most of my time singing at school, church, or touring on weekends with a small group.
I had three best friends and we stuck together throughout high school. I was terribly boy crazy. Made the honor roll, but hated studying!
I have very few happy memories from that period in my life, except I did discover girls can be fun.
I did get straight A’s at school, but was bored with going most of the time. I felt like I was some alien from space.
I though I was crazy. Now I know I am crazy but I have learned that this can be a good thing.
i too went on my first mission trip and that had a big impact on my life. I also got into boys a lot more that year and feeling the need to be loved and wanted by guys. I don’t know what changed that year, maybe it was my cup size that went to my head, haha but looking back now I see that was a glimpse of things to come. part happiness with God and struggling with needs of the flesh. I guess that year i became a woman, i really felt i was grown up then and in some ways i think i was but in many others i was too fast for my own good. thanks for the trip back down memory lane. 14 was a good year over all.
i just looked back at some of these. amazing, no mater the age difference now at 14 we were all in the same boat!
Age 14…pre-eyebrow plucking age! In addition to my unibrow, I had an obsession with earrings and a boy named Chaz. Plus, I was well on my way to a B in geometry – that stuff never made sense to my brain!
Today I rarely wear earrings and am thankful for my husband – named Mark. And I can’t tell you the last time (or any time at all) I used geometric skills!
I met DaRonn when I was fourteen. (-: sigh :-)
Taught Sunday School
Helped at a backyard bible club for kids
Room plastered with maps
Don’t worry be happy collection
Braces
Unpopular and indifferent to that fact
it’s wild to picture you all at 14!
I was the biggest teacher’s pet you’d ever seen. I didn’t talk much to other people, but when I did, I thought I knew it all. I was a straight A, honor student at a Christian school. I wanted to be “daring,” but I was too much of a goody-goody to do anything about it. I thought I was a christian but I didn’t have a relationship with Christ. I did it because I never did anything wrong, and that was the right thing to do. Oh and I remember I had my birthday at Embassy Suites hotel and I thought that was so cool.
I just caught on to this counting thing. Fourteen. I can’t believe it took me so long.
Boy crazy.
hannah — embassy suites?! you were BIG TIME!
natalie — i’m sure you’re not the last to figure it out…
cindy — am i the only one who got on the boy-crazy-wagon MUCH later in life???
hahahaha….i’m just now catching up on all your gritty posts, and this one is so fun!
let’s see…
‘ol swinger at 14…i, too, sported the scrawny legs…i wore bright yellow soccer cleats and wore my hair in a ponytail at all times…except if i was wearing it in a bun (but not a perfectly sloppy bun of current times, a tight “i should have been a ballerina” bun); i loved tagging along with my sister and her boyfriend; i thought that i would play on the olympic soccer team one day; i was quiet in the classroom, always did very well in school, and at home and with close friends— a completely odd/goofy/kooky girl.
alece! H U G from florida (where current temperature is about 67 degrees)