A Synopsis of Emma Nelson's Life (And How It Relates To Mine)

Emma Nelson starts out as just a normal teenager who was born when her spiky-haired mother was four-freaking-teen, with an online boyfriend from Africa...or something.
But not an episode of the fine television show that is Degrassi: The Next Generation goes by without something incredibly life-threatening happening.
Jordan, the love of her life, turns out to be a 40-something year old creepy rapist who wants to meet her in a hotel room, and she takes the bait.
In a very un-Degrassi fashion, however, she ends up not getting raped.
Anyway, her goal in life seems to be meeting her estranged father.
She ends up finding him!
And he is in a mental institution because he dropped acid once and jumped off a bridge. He later tries to terrorize Emma and her pregnant mother by following them to their home.

He's Shane McKay!

One time, she embarrassingly got her first period at school. So naturally she starts a campaign to add tampon dispensers to the school bathrooms, the humble beginnings of her hippie-ness and annoying extreme feminism.
However, she starts dating the misogynistic bad boy, Sean.
Emma's mom marries her teacher - well that must suck.
You know what also sucks?
Performing oral sex on the bad boy Jay by the lake in exchange for a colored bracelet and contracting gonorrhea of the throat. Another day in the life of Emma!
And when her new step-dad kisses her boyfriend's mom/school principal.
It's a small world in the town of Degrassi.
Anyway, Emma goes through a bunch of other ridiculous stuff that hardly happens to any actual people in this large of a combination, including a high school pregnancy scare, an eating disorder, streaking at school, and becoming a pothead. Then, her best friend Manny becomes famous and she is never seen in Degrassi again.
She was replaced by more people who go through the same exact things as her!

I find it unfathomable how bad these kids' fictional lives are.
It can't just be one thing - everyone knows you can't be a character on Degrassi without approximately 93482034 horrible things happening to you.

Anyway, I can relate to Emma not because I am a hippie or like chatting with perverts online, but because I didn't know my biological father either.
I didn't know either of my biological parents, actually, as I spent my childhood in foster care.
When I found out about this special thing called the Internet, I tried to track them down, but I gave up shortly after because, why bother?
I was also scared they would be like Shane McKay, to be honest. 

Whatever it takes,
Sparkles