my brief flirtation with mystery

When I was in high school, I was a theater kid. My friends make fun of me for this facet of my past, but I’m not ashamed. When I was in ninth grade, I auditioned for my school’s winter play. There were two other freshman in the show, two boys who would grow to be my close friends. They, however, knew some upperclassmen in the cast. I did not. And I do terribly in groups of new people, especially when everyone already knows each other. For the span of that play, I was virtually silent. I was too scared to sit in the Green Room, the social hub of the theater department, so I sat in the hallway and did my homework. The only times the other actors heard my voice was during rehearsal, while I was playing May the mayfly, a fly who realized she has the lifespan of one day and must seize the day and fuck some other play. Why my theater director cast the only freshman girl as a sexually active fly, I could not tell you. I can tell you that I was extremely embarrassed to say the word “orgasm,” a word I barely understood the meaning of, in front of an audience. AND the boy playing the other fly was a junior, and in my eyes, he was so mature and intimidating. So basically, a built an identity for myself as the scared quiet girl who was forced to say “rub my antennae harder” on stage. It wasn’t a good look. Then, my sophomore year, more students in my year joined! And I knew some of them already! That year, I felt more comfortable and was way more outgoing. To the upperclassmen, though, it appeared I had undergone a sudden personality change. This is all just to provide context to that “something someone has said about you that you’ll never forget.” Which honestly isn’t that impactful, but I couldn’t think of anything else. Anyway, at a cast party my sophomore year, a senior told me I was “an enigma.” I attributed this statement to my apparent personality change. But at the same time, I hoped it was something deeper than that. I was enamored with the notion that I could be sophisticated enough to have an enigmatic aura. I equated mystery with maturity and sexiness. In reality, this kid was just remarking that I was strange. But it unlocked an inner fantasy of being cool and secretive and puzzling. Was I truly an enigma? Certainly more than I am now, as I was much more emotionally guarded back then. But mostly no. I was just a weird kid who didn’t know who she was yet.