It took several songs to really get me to remember what happened when I was 13. If I had to pick one in particular to go alongside this memory it would be "Drops of Jupiter" by Train. That song was a favorite of mine and my best friend at the time. Below are a few notes I jotted down starting this project. I tried to remember anything I could from that year, events, movies that came out, shows I was watching at the time, anything that came to mind.

Finding My Tribe - image 1 - student project

Finding My Tribe - image 2 - student project

Most thirteen year olds are just trying to fit in as best they can, which can be an extreme endeavor being that nothing about you fits in at thirteen. Your entire body is morphing into what will be your adult self, resulting in some pretty embarrassing side effects. As if this isn’t enough, emotionally and mentally you’re trying to figure yourself out and find your place in the world. At thirteen I didn’t want to be the typical black girl. I didn’t want to be the typical anything. Unlike many of my peers at the time, I didn’t listen to rap, I didn’t watch MTV, and I liked to do weird stuff like go to the library, or draw, or watch Japanese cartoons of seemingly naked girls transforming into slightly less naked girls fighting weird monsters with love energy. All of that might seem cool to the average, modern day hipster kid, but in 2001 none of that was anywhere near the cool side of the spectrum. With all this in mind, it was very difficult trying to find my tribe. Most of the black girls in my school didn’t really know what to do with me. I was a strange bird, good for the occasional “hey, did you do the homework assignment?” in the hallway, but not so good for actual hanging out with so I turned to the next best thing, the white girls.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I know there are plenty of multifaceted magical black girls out there. I’m sure in the early days of AOL, in some chat room somewhere was a kindred spirit, or two, into all of the seemingly non-stereotypical stuff I was into at the time. Right now on my Insta feed is a buffet of gorgeous, natural haired, melanin popping goddesses into anime, comic books, sci-fi movies, all types of music, food, travel, design and all other types of interests. Unfortunately, 15 years ago none of that stuff was outwardly cool and none of those girls attended Benjamin Tasker Middle School; so there I found myself.

Most of the popular white girls didn’t really know what to do with me either. If I didn’t make the black girls look good, I really stood out with them. However, there was a small subgroup of nerdlings that had interests similar enough to mine to create a friendship and thus my clique was formed. My best friend at the time was sort of middle of the road in terms of popularity. She was equally into Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings as she was into the Real World and TRL. This made her a bit of a social chameleon and in a way made me slightly cooler by association. If she could hang out with me, I couldn’t be that bad, right?

Now that I had acquired a group of friends, I had to prove myself in the traditional adolescent ritual of a sleepover. This would be not just any sleepover. By now, my bestie and I had already had a few successful one on ones, but it was time to take this show on the road. She had invited not only our core group of friends, but being the chameleon that she was, a bit of a mixed bag of some of the more popular girls as well. It was kind of a big deal to me being that this would be the first major party I was attending; I had to make a good impression. No one wants to hear how lame they are through the third period grapevine. I’m pretty sure I was one of the first to arrive. I was able to mentally prepare myself for the rest of guests and kind of catch their vibes as they arrived one at a time. As the night went on, we all got more and more comfortable around each other and soon it was time for the first test: a game of truth or dare.

The secret to truth or dare is to always pick dare. No one needed to know about my budding crush on Louis Stevens of Even Stevens, (I don’t think Shia LaBeouf was a thing quite yet) or the kid in our social studies class who just so happened to look like Carlos from the Magic School Bus. The more about myself I could keep to myself the better, but a dare…not only does a dare keep all your secrets but, impresses all of your friends as well. You could prove how cool and bold you were by making a prank call, or knocking on your friends parents bedroom door while they were sleeping. When it finally came to my turn I proudly requested my dare and then proceeded to go outside and smash a cookie in my pants while yelling something ridiculous to the neighbors (I cannot remember at all what it was). I could hear the laughter from outside. I was knocking them dead! I had won them all over, I could saunter back in with my cookie crumble pajamas and rest assured that there would be no stories about what a wet blanket I was on Monday. I was riding high, until it was time for the next activity. I had gotten so comfortable I forgot that I was one of only two black girls at this party and the next test was just about the whitest thing I had ever experienced. They wanted to mess with some stuff we had absolutely no business messing with. They wanted to conjure some ghosts. They wanted to bring out the Ouija board.

I have always been a chicken. There is nothing that interests me in the horror genre. I would much rather sit and watch a cartoon cat eat lasagna than try to get scared out of my mind or conjure some spirit by accident who wreaks havoc on my life. Not to mention, we all know who dies first in a horror movie, and right now I was a particularly easy target. What was I going to do? What started as a fun, innocent night had now turned into the stereotypical peer pressure scene in a preteen movie, was I going to take the marijuana cigarette or stand up and tell everyone all the terrifying consequences of their actions; or worse, call my mom and sit on the sidewalk while I wait for her to pick me up. My adolescent brain scrambled to weigh the pros and cons of staying in a dark kitchen conjuring spirits or letting all my new so called friends know how lame I actually was. Did I really want to go back to being the bottom of the social barrel? Was it really that big of a deal, I mean, what’s the worst that could ACTUALLY happen, right? Man up for once.

We all sat on the kitchen floor in a circle around the board, hands together piled up on the little arrow that would rely the messages from the great beyond. My heart was pounding as the girls went around asking questions.

“Can you hear us?”

“When am I going to get married?”

“How many kids am I going to have?”

“Will I get an A on the math test?”

Ok, this wasn’t so bad. These were pretty innocent questions. I thought I would be ok until I realized that was just a warm up. My friend then announced that she would be trying to contact her deceased grandparent. As non-stereotypical as I thought myself to be, the next thought to pop into my head I’m sure would’ve been the same for many other black people after hearing that announcement.

“Aw hell naw.”

I was not about to contact anyone’s dead anything. I had to abort this mission pronto, popularity aside, this was getting out of hand. After scrambling to find an excuse to leave I finally just admitted that this was entirely too much and I was out. To my surprise, no one really said much. I broke the circle, got up and walked from the kitchen to my friends’ bedroom where the other black girl from the party was already sitting watching TV. I opened the door and we gave each other a knowing look. As we sat there watching Animaniacs and listening to the screams coming from the kitchen, I knew I made the right decision. Perhaps I hadn’t quite found my tribe yet, or perhaps being in a tribe didn’t mean you had to do everything together or even understand each other all the time. Maybe there was just way more for me to learn about the world and about myself before I found my place. Whatever the lesson, I was proud that I didn’t do anything I wasn’t comfortable with and didn’t go to any extremes to try to fit in or be “cool” or “normal.” I was ok with not fitting in. For now I could be my own tribe.

Carly Pryor

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