Flashback: 1996

In three weeks, my little sister, the light of my life (seriously, I adore her) is turning thirteen. I was at the mall yesterday and struggling to find the 'perfect' gift for her ... struggling, in fact, to remember what it was like to be 13 at all. What did I want back then? What would have been the best gift?

I turned to my usual reference library: my diaries. The particular diary I was looking for was full (FULL) of angsty entries about various cute boys in my junior high, and how I didn't have any boobs, which wasn't fair because my best friend had been wearing a bra since grade 4.

Here's what I asked for for my thirteenth birthday (on a scrap piece of paper entitled "Brianna's B-day List, July 15 1996" in my loopy adolescent writing)
- Foo Fighters cd
- Stone Temple Pilots* (*which I spelled Piolets)
- Tragically Hip 'Trouble in the Henhouse'
- bush X cd
- black umbro soccer shorts
- 'Friends' poster
- Nike soccer bag
- birkenstock shoes
- plaid shirts

Yes, that's word for word what I wanted for my birthday. So indicative of the time period, isn't it? Friends, Bush (oh Gavin Rossdale!) Plaid, birkenstocks and the Foo Fighters. I have no idea how I grew up to be such so unaffected after surviving the grunge period. Needless to say, the list didn't give me much insight for my 2006 dilemma. I ended up buying her a shirt from American Eagle ... boring perhaps, but guarenteed to be a hit with the 15 and under crowd.

While I'm on the topic of diaries: it's amazing how grown up you feel when you're that age, and how little you really know. At the back of my grade 7 diary, I carefully wrote the names and phone numbers of all the really popular girls in my school, even though I actually hated them (hated!) That way, I reasoned, if I ever lost my diary and someone came across it, they would think I was popular too and immediately fall in love with me and ask me to marry them. Seriously. I also wrote in the name and number of my capital C Crush, Steven, and then crossed it out. That way if he ever saw it, he would know I was sooo over him.

I don't know if I would do that anymore. Then again, I don't know any popular girls that I really hate (Queen's was sort of the anti-social-hierarchy institution) Maybe there's a little bit of a 13-year-old in all of us. If, however, I ever start gushing about Steve on this blog, using phrases like "I think I have finally found my life-long love", a phrase which I ACTUALLY used in reference to a kid named Colin with short hair and big ears - please, feel free to tell me to grow up :)