Teenage Kicks

I never understood adults who talk about their teenage years being the best time of their life. I remember myself from the ages of 13–19, I felt awkward and frustrated and lonely and powerless and wanted nothing more than for those times to be over. Go back to that? No thank you!

Now that I'm quite beyond those teenage years, I don't have that drippy nostalgia that leads women of questionable age to get tramp stamps and spend thousands of dollars on various torturous procedures that keep them looking "young" (if "young" means stretched and pulled within an inch of your life), but I do have such a fondness for teenage culture. I enjoy tuning into "Degrassi" or watching Zac Efron movies or catching a "One Tree Hill" marathon on SOAPNet or blasting Fall Out Boy's teen angst anthems at full blast on my very long commute.

With my purchase of the "Daria" boxed set a few weeks back, a release I'd been anticipating for years, I think I finally figured out my teenaged pop culture tastes. Even though I am very much no longer a teenager, there are still so many times when I feel as awkward and frustrated and lonely and powerless as I did when I was a scrawny girl with braces and terrible hair, and there are still definitely times when I want nothing more than for these times to be over.



I'm about five discs into the eight-disc "Daria" set and have loved every minute of it. It takes me back to my college days when the show first came on MTV and I was so happy to have a television character to relate to, even if she was animated. It also takes me back to my high school days when I would get frustrated in English class because everyone was happy to just give stock answers and never delve deeper, the times when I wondered how my brother and I could have grown up in the same house but have such different priorities, the times when my friendships would thrive or crumble, the times when I would fall hard for a rebel boy and never quite know how to act around him.

Who wouldn't want to relive that?

With the "Daria" set, I get a sharper view of that time and it helps me realize that even though there are days when I feel like my 13-year-old self, I know that I'm no longer that girl, that I am stronger and smarter and calmer than she was. I may not be the person I dreamt I'd be back then, but I am a pretty good version of myself for right now. And maybe 15 years from now I'll have some kind of weird nostalgia for my 30s on days when I get stuck inside the groove, but hopefully I'll be able to really look at myself, look at my life and see that I'm in a pretty good place.

Wherever Daria and Jane and their compatriots ended up, I hope that they're happy with where their lives are at, too.

YouTube is filled with many clips, episodes and odes to "Daria." This one caught my attention because I do have a soft spot for Trent, who is a bit of a dirt bag but has a really good heart.