“Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did *was* wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us, is a brain…and an athlete…and a basket case…a princess…and a criminal…Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.”

It wasn’t until I got older that I truly sat down and watched The Breakfast Club and understood it for what it was.  Sure I had seen it many times growing up but I never sat down and analyzed it.  John Hughes’s ability to provide commentary on adolescents was pretty damn brilliant.  From the outside we saw these characters as labels, a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.  High school kids who thought they had nothing in common at all.  As their characters developed you found out each of them had various parts of the other in them.

Like most high school students I was all of these things and then some.  Unlike a lot of my peers I refused to be pigeon holed in to one particular group.  I hated labels.  I hated the idea of someone judging me just because of whatever “status” I held in those walls.  I was my own person  damnit and I would decide where I fell in the social atmosphere of my high school.  The rules seemed ridiculous to me.  Brains couldn’t be jocks or popular or stoners because what brain is coordinated enough to play sports.  Princesses couldn’t play sports because athletes sweat and that’s a “no-no”.  So many rules made my head spin.  I was part of a “Clique” in Junior High.  It was the summer between 8th grade and freshman year that I realized how stupid it was.  We would kick people out of the clique because they did something wrong or this person didn’t like them or what ever.  It was complete bullshit.

So in high school I made a conscious decision not to belong to any group but instead to float from group to group.  It wasn’t easy because some people didn’t like you hanging out with other groups but, as you have learned about me through this blog, I didn’t give a flying eff what others thought.  I had so many interests and wanted to figure out what I wanted to do with my life that I wasn’t about to give up being involved in everything I could.  God for bid if you were part of the popular crowd and wanted to be in an academic club…Watching peers fall from grace because of activities they chose was sad.  I never understood and probably never will.

So to the answer the question I was every member of The Breakfast Club including the ones that weren’t portrayed.  I look back at my high school years and I’m proud of who I was.  I truly believe it helped shape the person I am today.  Allowing myself to have so many experiences gave me a better sense of who I wanted to be in life.  And in a way, I’m still that high school student today.  I play sports, I read, I gossip, I work hard, I goof around, and I read textbooks for fun.  I am simply me.

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