|
When I was already a mom with kids
of my own, I re-met Anne, a girl who had been in my fifth grade
class and every class after that, but who had been so quiet that
I barely knew she existed. She came over for dinner one night
with her kids. My husband asked her how she had liked the kids
at the schools
we had gone to together.
Her answer was simple - - but to
me it was stunning.
"I didn't have anything in common
with them," she said.
Here we were, two girls in the
same school who both felt out of it. But I had blamed myself.
I thought must not look right, act right, BE right because
I wasn't popular.
But Anne was equally outside
of things and she didn't think it was her fault.
It was one of those Ally McBeal
moments when things fall into place and you learn something
important about yourself. What Anne said had also been true
for me. I didn't have much in common with the kids in my new
school. (I had moved there the summer before fifth grade.)
I still played with dolls and they wanted to be grown up.
I wanted to roller skate with boys and they wanted to kiss
them. Later, in junior high and high school, I cared more
about ideas and they cared more about looks and clothes.
But instead of seeing things
for what they were as Anne did, I blamed myself, and my self-esteem
suffered .
And I'll tell you a secret:
If you think there's something wrong with you, no one will
argue with you. They will agree with gusto.
It's a subtle thing - what you
feel inside about yourself kind of gets projected out into
the world, almost like invisible vibes that other people feel.
THE
MOVE
The summer between fourth and
fifth grade, social disaster struck. My parents bought a house
across town. I made my mom take me to the principals' office
at school to tell them that I wanted to keep going to my old
school - but they told us it was impossible.
After we moved, I had a great
summer. I could have killed my father for waylaying the girl
he saw walking past our yard into the house next door and
telling her to come meet his daughter who was her age. But
that awkward moment (I had just washed my hair and had it
wrapped in a towel and didn't want anyone to see me looking
like that!) bloomed into a friendship and Claudia and I played
together every day that summer and were friends for years
to come.
When we played handball against
my garage door or roller-skated around the block, we were
joined by Ricky, this really cute boy who lived around the
corner. He skated with us and chased us and told us dirty
jokes that made us feel really grown up. Once, he skated up
behind me and pulled down my zipper. I zipped it back up real
fast and pretended to be mad but I really wasn't. In fact,
I liked it. He paid attention to me, he clearly liked me and
we had a great time together.
Off to a good start, right?
REJECTION
All that changed once school
started. I was so happy to find out that Ricky was in my class.
But now that we were around other kids, he acted completely
differently towards me. Suddenly, he wasn't my friend anymore.
I don't know, maybe it was considered uncool in that class
to be friends with a girl.
When he wasn't ignoring me, he
was making fun of me. Here I thought I was going into this
class full of strangers with at least one friend - and he
had suddenly and without warning turned into an enemy.
And the kids at my new school
were so different than the kids at my old school. The new
kids didn't seem to play much, except ball games at recess.
They -- or at least the girls -- were less concerned with
games than with how their hair looked and with wearing the
clothes that were the most in. They tried to be as gown up
as possible, carrying purses and rolling their socks (we had
to wear socks) down so low it looked like they weren't wearing
any. And they weren't very nice and they weren't very friendly.
Not a great place to be new.
There were the popular girls
- the ones who were both pretty AND smart and who wore just
the right clothes. Then there were other girls who were already
paired up with best friends.
This continued throughout junior
high and high school. I always had two or three friends but
they were chosen because I needed to be with someone, and
not because I adored them.
That's how things went for years.
I felt bad about myself but never, ever breathed a word if
it to anyone.
A
LUCKY BREAK
Then, on the first day of 11th
grade, I noticed Anne in my last period class. She was all
excited about this group of kids she had gotten involved with
over the summer. She had become involved in a project where
high school kids who were doing okay in school were tutoring
elementary school kids in a poor part of town. The tutors
had been trained together and had formed a kind of group.
Every day, she would tell me more about it.
That Saturday night, they were
all going to the movies together, and Anne asked if I wanted
to come.
Well, to make a long story short,
I really hit it off with this crowd. They became my friends.
I finally found the right fit.
And I finally realized that I
was an OK person.
Better late than never.
|
