The Archbishop's Adolescent God
Matt Kennedy+

Early adolescence is one of the toughest times to be human. Your body is awkwardly shaped and your social skills underdeveloped. You are terrified of and yet terribly interested in the opposite sex. You want to “stand out” and “be yourself” and fit into the right crowd, but all too often you collapse in a quivering mass of insecurity; petrified by the thought of social ostracization. You’re a walking bundle of contradictions.

But so is everyone else and there’s safety in numbers. So you try desperately to fit in with a peer group. You dress the way they dress, talk the way they talk, act the way they act and if/when your parents object, you feel they're limiting your "self expression." You just gotta be you.

Now that we're light years from that mortifying stage of life, Anne and I enjoy perusing old pictures, laughing hysterically that I rolled my pant-legs and shirtsleeves so tight that they looked like giant billowing airbags, laughing at Anne’s enormous earrings and teased hair. the rest