My memories of being a teenager are dim at best, bracketed as they are with cancer and an accident. The real life, the friends and shows and adventures, recede. I have a box of ticket stubs and posters to prove to myself that I actually did go places, but the only thing I retain is a few random impressions.
Skipping school to go to the city and watch plays. Lurking in the only school hallway without security cameras. Listening to KJET. Walking in the forest at night. Driving in the dark. Wanting to be someone else, somewhere else.
The trouble with real life was the fact that I had to be exactly who I was. I wanted to be more than the illness, without becoming a poster child to inspire others. I took the position that my cancer was not available for public consumption, and that I would preserve my privacy at any cost. Forget inspiration. I wanted to have fun.
My real social life took place elsewhere, via a post office box. I started my first zine in 1984 and later picked up an assortment of pen pals from all over the country and world. The identity I crafted through my zine and correspondence was like me, but different. I could talk about music and shows and movies and politics without ever being forced by circumstance to acknowledge the truth of my situation. I could tell whatever half-truth I preferred, could rehearse stories until they were shiny.
Music, zines, and letters were the only tools I had to crack the seal of isolation and illness. It is no exaggeration to say that I picked a new life because my pen pals informed me that I could. Kids are notoriously open to peer pressure; it was good I had someone to talk to other than the neighbor who nailed kittens to trees.
Eventually my life became integrated – I grew up, just like everyone else. But my inclination to maintain long distance friendships survived, and then the internet came along to facilitate the habit.
Lots of people think that email has caused a slide in written communication, but as someone who never uses the phone and has always used mail, I disagree. Since almost everyone has email now I hear from more people than I ever did.
There are certainly fewer letters written longhand, but the profusion of zines is astonishing. I get a new zine almost every single day — whereas in my teen years I could look forward to one each month, if I was lucky. Online communities and journals have multiplied communication to a level that would have been inconceivable way back in 1984.
I have always lived in the Pacific Northwest but I know people all over the world. I have friends wherever I go, sometimes so many friends I can’t even schedule time to see them all.
When I think about my life in the abstract I do not place myself in whatever city is home– I know that I could move away tomorrow and still have multitudes of friends, because no matter where I end up I can still write and read and send mail.