I was a teenager once. In fact, it wasn’t so long ago… something that I think sometimes helps me deal with the crazy ones in my life now. And by crazy I mean crazy. Steve and I are quite sure that teenagers have been lobotomized (think One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) at around 13 and will be un-lobotomized (it’s a word) around 18 and somehow parents, even the most astute, just missed the procedure. It must happen in the dark of night. The lobotomy men crawl through the windows of unsuspecting, sleeping teens and swiftly and quietly perform the procedure. Your once-sweet teenager has, seemingly overnight, turned into an angry, brooding person hardly recognizable from that which they were the day before. Ah! The lobotomy men must’ve paid us a visit! Anyway, where was I going with this? Well, that is my declaration. That teenagers are indeed crazy. Certifiably insane, I do believe.
My confession and admittance is that I was one too. I think I still made more sense and spoke less jibberish than mine do now (of course I do! But seriously!) but, nevertheless, I had a semi-lobotomy. Just a small one. Partial, if you will. Here’s why I know this is true. I practically had a love affair with Leonardo DiCaprio in my mind. I watched, like many of you, Romeo & Juliet with him and Claire Danes.
Love.
I mean love.
I thought about him nonstop. I wanted to be Claire Danes. I had a white wall in my bedroom and I went through a hippy phase in middle school complete with door-hanging beads, a blue lava lamp, and a blacklight. Thus, with my trusty highlighter, I could confess my love for Leo on my wall in highlighter and noone would see it until they turned my blacklight on. Then, like some scene from a movie with a psycho killer, they would see “Bridget DiCaprio” and “Bridget + Leo 4Ever” and “I love Leo!” all over my wall. Then, they call the police.
The police part didn’t happen but only because I didn’t in fact know his address and didn’t have either the money or know-how to fly across the country to L.A. to stalk him by myself. Otherwise…
And I seriously, seriously conjured up this idea in my head that it was actually possible for him to fall in love with me. For us to somehow cross paths and become husband and wife. I must say now, just so you all don’t write me off as a lunatic, that somehow in that semi-lobotomized brain of mine, I knew the chances were slim, but at the time, I sincerely hoped to be Mrs. DiCaprio.
I think I got over it by high school.
And then Titanic came out.
Enjoy some of the songs that aided in my fake love-affair.
(from Romeo & Juliet and, of course, the Titanic theme)
That is one great story…I used to love that movie too…So romantic and cool:) I totally know what you mean about being a teen…Have a fantastic day
Kisses
Ps: I am hosting a natural cosmetics GIVEAWAY today! Hope you’ll join in 🙂
god, i wore my R&J soundtrack cd OUT. come to think of it… it's still good.
i was crushin' on leo when he made his debut on growing pains. obsessed with him. and now, when i see him i feel the same way when i see an ex boyfriend who's gotten fat and haggard over the years. "what was i THINKING? he's not dreamy at all!"
pretty sure out teenage selves would of fought to the death over leo.
Bridget, I'm sorry to break this to you, but it simply wasn't possible that you could have ever been Mrs. DiCaprio. Because, actually, Leo and I had a thing. It was pretty serious for awhile. Like, he was pretty in love with me. And I with him. I know this may be difficult for you to hear.
Omg. All kidding aside, this playlist has me feeling all sorts of preteen/teenager angst and desperation over unrequited love. With Leo. Seriously, you were not the only one with neurotic tendencies when it came to this guy. I remember litereally CRYING because I wanted him so badly. God. He was such a fox.
Ha! My sister had the same love affair. Except she hung posters in her closet when she ran out of wall space, and she posted a picture of him on the ceiling over her bed so that she could look at him as she fell asleep.
they definitely get lobotomized!
i had a pretty serious crush on JTT in middle school… didn't do the marker thing, but would have if i had heard about such brilliance.
I was so obsessed with Leo too! Had posters all over my walls…and I maybe made him a birthday cake for at least two years in a row (November 11)! Now that is troubling…
omg my sister had an INSANE obsesseion with him. i loved romeo and juliet way more than titanic, weirdly enough. and the soundtrack!!!
HAHAHA!! Did you ever kiss your pillow and pretend?? I did. 🙂
oh my… i love this! (and what a hot pic of leo!)
i had a serious love obsession of my own back in high school with actor viggo mortensen (aragorn from the lord of the rings). the same with you: i seriously thought we were meant to be (even though he's 30 years older than me) and thought that if we met we would totally fall in love.
oh, and i just want to say that i drop in on your blog every now and then (you commented on mine a few months back) and i read your posts on how you and your husband fell in love. what a crazy story! and so awesome! i think you're around my age (i'm 23) and i can't imagine having a baby let alone 4 full grown kids right now. so huge kudos to you! i know it must be really hard sometimes, but i know it's all worth it for the love of your life 🙂
and also, a few posts back you linked to the green monster smoothie:
http://itsahuntlife.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-day-looked-up.html
i tried one recipe a few months back, but it called for so many fruits and things that my poor little blender couldn't handle it and the smoothie just came out lumpy with little specks of spinach floating around. so i just happened to come across the one on your blog (with the soy milk, flaxseed, spinach, banana, ice) and it turned out perfectly! it was bright green and smooth just like the picture! i made it for the first time this morning and i'm loving it! so thank you thank you for that link!!
wow, i think i just wrote the longest comment ever, sorry about that 😛
I'm tickled to bits you commented on my blog!
I've spent too much time poring over your blog!! I love it & I love your relationship story. Love is love.
all i can say is…me too, girl, me too! omg i was OBSESSED!! and i love love love love that soundtrack so thanks for brightening my day with some good tunes 🙂
I did the SAME thing…I was convinced I'd marry Tom Cruise, then Brad Pitt, then Titanic Leo and finally….Prince William. Teenage girls are insane AND delusional.
hahahaha I love this. I can definitely relate to your Leo obsession. And seriously, I had those crazy door bead things too. Why did we find those cool?? Being a teenager was so silly!
@anne – i remember his birthday being nov 11! because mine is the 14th and somehow that made us even more meant to be.
@jenny – girlfriend, dont think i did that, but it is NOT out of the question.
looks like i'm not the only one with this past obsession.
Seriously, Leo was a BABE. My love affair with him started with Growing Pains. WHAT.A.FREAKING.SEXY.PANTS.
This reminds me of my teenage years when I was in love with every movie bad boy I saw. (sigh) The horror!
@andrea- glad you tried the green monster! i am craving it right now after your comment! and viggo is a hottie too.
i still wish i were claire danes…but now because of hugh dancy.
You crack me up! Love him so much also! Mostly, my younger self does. My older self just thinks he was a great actor in Catch me if you can.
Bridget DiCaprio has a great ring to it! At least more of a ring than Bar Refaeli DiCaprio.
i remember that well bridget. you did have quite the crush. there are a few other labotomy-induced things you did as a teenager that i remember. but i will never tell! at least not in this public forum. so whenever you need a reminder that you too were CAH-RAZY, you give me a call. love you!
Oh my gosh, I have the most mortifying Leo story, but I feel like I can share…I once wrote him a fan letter (ok, love letter) but at that particular house we had a really long driveway so it wasn't like I could sneak it to the mailbox. My mom totally caught me and I told her I was mailing a letter to a friend. (Good one.) A couple hours later she came into my (Leo-postered) room and said she put something in the mail too and saw my letter was to Leo and that I shouldn't be embarrassed. Which, at that age, is PRECISELY what I was – pretty freakin horrified. I should have never tried to hide my love in the first place – or at least that's the moral I tried to get out of it anyway…
We did Romeo + Juliet last year in school (yes I am one of those insane teenagers you speak of) and I giggled and daydreamt a lot after watching the movie. I haven't gone the highlighter route yet, but now that you mention it… 😉
xx
Pretty sure my friend and I wrote a 70 pg story about how we met Leo and he fell in love with BOTH of us? We must have been in Junior High. I still love Leo…but just the Titanic Leo, not the current Leo:)
LEO. <3
i went through the same love affair, around the time titanic came out. oh my holy, SO IN LOVE. and then, in the beginning of college, i went through this phase where i couldn't stand him. (i think maybe i was just trying to hide the fact that i was still kind of in love with him, let's be real)
that didn't last long, and i realized that i will always adore him, just not in that "holy crap that's my future husband" kind of way. UNTIL… i went to the inception premiere last summer. and he walked down the theater aisle, all tall and glorious, and sat behind me… he was so handsome and i felt a little weak in the knees. and then he smiled at me and i think i died for second. i felt like that high school girl all. over. again.
Bridge,
You had me actually laughing out loud. Not only did I startle my dog, but my fiancé now thinks I'm certifiable.
Now that you’ve shared your one-sided teenage love affair. I’ll share mine in solidarity. I was in love with a ghost, a friendly ghost.
Yes, that’s right. I was in love with the human form of Casper the Friendly Ghost, Devon Sawa. Ahahahah. Just typing those words slay me! He was in the movie for all of about 10 minutes and I fell in love. Truthfully I blame my heartache on Teenbeat and Tigerbeat.
I’m going to go fold laundry and hang my head in shame now…
OH my goodness. I was crazy in love with him too. And everyone else. I had a list of guys that I was in "love" with from A-Z. Literally. Wrote down names of guys who I had crushes on. I kept it in a scrap book for some odd reason and still have it. Henry Thomas (the boy from ET) was one of them and later in life…(3 years ago) I ended up hanging out with him a couple times here in LA. I kept thinking how ridiculous he would think I was if I ever showed that list to him. Luckily, I never did. Maybe because I never confessed to him that I knew who he "was".
Great!
You make me cry laughing…love it!
…I'm feeling ya on the teen thing…I got 14 and 12….we're in it….for the long haul! 🙂
xo
Hahaha this is fantastic! And I, duh, totally agree because Leo is so yummy in Romoe + Juliet (a movie I'm still borderline obsessed with, it's fine). But seriously, I looove that you wrote on your wall with highlighters! That idea never occurred to me and I can only imagine how much better my tweens would've been had I known. 🙂
when i was leeeeettle.. my whole family knew i was OBSESSED with leo.. my dad took me on a dady/daughter date and gave me a tiny picture book filled with his pictures.
…..
….
….
..
…
…
i still have it.
Hi Bridget! I recently came across your blog and am now a follower! I love it! You are adorable and so funny!
I too have to admit that when I was a teenager (which I imagine was around the same time as you), I also was MADLY in love with Leo… To the point that I cried when I found out he was dating someone!! So this post, really hit close to home and made me laugh so hard! I agree that teenagers are CRAZY!
Looking forward to reading more of your posts!
Oh my goodness that is so cute and funny! I definitely can identify past behavior that surely must have been a direct result from a secret lobotomy… it's good to know the excuse now!
xx Melina
The pics are really lovely!
xoxo
Something happens to our brains when we're teenagers and it's not pretty. Sometimes I phone up my mother and I apologize.
I LOVE that you wrote about your Leo crush.
I was head over heels for Leo DiCaprio, too! And, to be perfectly honest, still harbor a little love for him. Glad to know I wasn't the only crazy one.
i am with you girl. i had a full on leonardo dicaprio shrine in my bedroom. my cousin baked a cake on his birthday (11/11/1974) and i think i went to r+j + titanic about 20 times each. crying every time. i still have a place in my heart for leo to this day!
xo
sami
I think when most people were mackin on JT Thomas and Devon Sawa, I had crushes on Clark Gable and Cary Grant. We all should have seen my future life coming!
At any rate, my little sister is going through this phase right now. It's very hard to have pregnant mood swings around someone with so much disdain for…everything.
Haha,the playlist is a nice touch, Bridget.
i shared the same obsession. he's a little too "damaged" in his movies now, but as jack and romeo, oh my, i would die.
This made me laugh – I too was once in love with Leo (who wasn't?!). I actually went so far as to go to the mall and purchase the screenplay for Titanic along with a couple other Hfield friends. Did you know in the alternate ending that Leo doesn't die!?
Just thought you should know. lol
but yes, teenagers are crazy. it's funny because our parents once said to us (in reference to moodiness, etc) what you are saying now. I guess we all get ours eventually, huh? 🙂
Girl, oh girl the boy was sooo mine!
I loved him and he loved me more than any other girl :)! I wanted to write about Leonardo and I, but I don't know now after all these girls coming out about their love affair with him :(! The difference is that Leonardo and I were close and shared the best love story possible for a teenager :)!
No, really I love your post and I am glad we have something in common: our teenage love for Leonardo – I might still share the love story Leonardo and I shared on my blog one of these days :)!
Bridge- this was the funniest thing I have ever read. I loved your door beads.
ahh, leonardo "di-capuccino" (that's what we call him these days…). i LOVED him too. i saw Titanic 4x in the theater and listened to the radio EVERY night to see if My Heart Will Go On was still the #1 voted song for our NY region. so silly. 🙂 thanks for stopping by my blog. love your posts and pictures. how i miss the east coast! (sniff, sniff)
Oh boy. Mee too.
Except I think I'm still slightly holding onto my Leo obsession. Don't tell anyone.
oh my gosh, are you me? cause i'm pretty sure i just read my about my younger days and my love for mr. leo. i mean, serious love for him.
and those songs? total memories right there.
I could have written this post! Except I didn't do the highlighter on wall with backlight thing. I begged for a blacklight at one point though!
You and I have got a severe case of same person syndrome when it comes to Leo-and shared adoration for the old days of TGIF 😀
(anyone with a brain, lobo/partial lobo/lost marbles/fully educated and conscious and using all their sense, would have and should have loved Leo) 😉