My Awakening : The Straight Edge Movement

Eighteen months ago, my life changed forever. Eighteen months ago, I was a foolish little girl who didn’t know what I believed or what I stood for. Then I woke up. I read of a rabbi who said that “maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values”, and then I met a person who showed me that it was true. This is the maxim that I have come to live my life by, and the lesson that awakened me from my naiveté.

At the commencement of my sophomore year I met a few interesting characters who turned out to be the people who would make me realize exactly who I didn‘t want to be. These people were everything that I was not. I was quiet, self-conscious, and a hermit within my lovely little Victorian home. They were obnoxious, boisterous rebels who had no concept of obedience and had no regard for the law. For whatever reason, this was appealing to me. The danger signs were all there, and they may as well have been flashing at me, but I still ignored them. These people were a parent’s worst nightmares. All under-aged alcoholics, substance users, and party-goers that would make your skin crawl if you saw them. Why they appealed to me, to this day I cannot fathom, but I befriended them. That was all. I was a friend, but not an accomplice. I spoke with them, I dated one of them, I went to concerts with them, but when the word “party” came up, I always backed down. I was determined to be with them, but not to become them.

Once I started lingering around them, their luster began to fade. Maybe the luster was never there, and I had only imagined that there was an ounce of good in these “friends”. In the end, I was tired of watching them act like immature imbeciles. I grew agitated at the fact that they would call me while they were intoxicated and they would abandon me when the opportunity for a night of revelry would arise. These so-called “buddies” started losing themselves one by one. Some were arrested, others sent to therapy, a few placed in rehab, some refused to get help… but all were lost causes. I may have been angry and upset with them at the time, but today I am grateful, because they taught me one lesson that I would never forget, and that was to maintain a lifestyle that I could be proud of, rather than one that would eventually lead me to shame.

After abandoning these “pals” of mine, I decided to find something and someone that I could be proud of. When I had been a part of that group I met a boy named Jeremy, who tried to warn me about the crowd that I was falling into. At the time, I didn’t respect what he had to say because I didn’t want to hear it. Once I started to see my old friends for who they were, my respect for Jeremy grew immensely. He, too, was everything that they were not. He was part of the straight edge movement, which embraces a healthy lifestyle of refraining from smoking, alcohol consumption, drugs, and sexual promiscuity. When I heard about this lifestyle I knew that it was something that I needed to embrace, because it embodied the values that I had always hoped to live out, but never had the strength to. After apologizing to Jeremy for my previous behavior, he and I became great friends and eventually started dating. He changed my entire life and the way that I saw it. I’m sure many people say this of their boyfriends, but to me he means much more. Whether we are together for an eternity, or our relationship ends tomorrow, the lifestyle and values that he has introduced to me will never be forgotten. For that I will always grateful for him, because without him I would not be proud of who I am. I could not be proud of who I am. He gave me the strength to stand for something, and that something was myself and my morals.

Eighteen months ago I read a quote by a rabbi. Eighteen months ago I met a boy who introduced me to a new lifestyle. Eighteen months ago they collided and became what I decided to be, and that is a person who has enough will power to make healthy decisions and build the moral values that make me the mature, vibrant, straight-edge young woman that I have evolved into.