Hi out there!
I hope all is well and that everyone had a wonderful Tday.
I spent mine in South Carolina and it was lovely. I missed my own family dearly, but I enjoy (most) of Crush's, so it was a nice celebration.
I have a lot to say and yet I feel myself pulling back. I am censoring myself a bit which I don't like. For a while, I played around with the idea of revealing more of myself and sharing photos and all that on this blog. After much consideration, I finally decided that I just don't feel comfortable with this right now.
I am still trying to get my legs here and life is great, but is it perfect? Of course not. I had a bunch of less anonymous posts planned (they are in my draft box) and I felt major doubt and anxiety about unveiling myself every single time I went to press the publish button. I have to trust my instincts.
I am in the process of looking for a full-time job blah blah blah and the REAL truth here: Crush's family is sadly VERY judgmental and I fear that if they read ALL of what I have said here and I have said a lot, well then, I guess I worry that they wouldn't like me and they wouldn't understand me. Then, I stress that my fiance wouldn't want to marry me.....HOLY REVELATION TIME!!!!!!
I am me. I am this person now and she is pretty great. BUT, I have a past. A past a bit juicer than Crush's.
Crush is getting better at being his own man, but he is very influenced by his family and that is actually a good thing because his parents are awesome and quite sensible.
But.....well, there is a big piece of this puzzle I am leaving out, so here goes.....
Let's just say that Crush's little sister is a force to be reckoned with and I don't want to face that force head on. I am totally afraid of her in some ways because she is utterly unpredictable. Her favorite current form of entertainment is looking up a Facebook profile of one of her "friends" and publicly ripping that person apart....ruthlessly. To say I find her appalling would be an understatement. She is the text book definition of a mean girl. The only silver lining, I have experience with this type of gal. I remember high school well and let's not even start with the countless vapid bridezillas I have dealt with over the last few years. And perhaps even more important, Crush thinks she acts like an idiot too, but he is not one to ruffle feathers or speak his mind. We are working on this. I bet his family won't like it, but as much as I love his sweetness, I also need some balls and a backbone.
She leaves me exhausted.
I don't think there is anyway to avoid having her as a bridesmaid even though I would seriously entertain eloping in order to avoid having her around me on my wedding. She is just everything I am against and I find it very telling that Crush says that he "despises girls like his sister" because we are so different. Any romantic fan of hers wouldn't be a fan of mine.
More to come on her, I have a whole post dedicated to her commentary.
Crush knows EVERYTHING about me, but of course, there are some personal things that his family doesn't. Things from my past that I am sure they would find concerning. I went through a phase where I dabbled in cocaine a little bit. I have eating issues. I used to drink because I was so depressed. I used to get very angry. I have been in several abusive relationships where I made myself a willing victim.
I am finding that by keeping to myself, being a good listener and staying friendly, I am okay. These are not traits that come easy for me. All of my life experiences have come together as a coping mechanism.
I am thinking of continuing to blog here and then in due time, making a new public blog that shares more of my life openly. There, things will be a bit more sunshine and rainbows as most public blogs are. I want to tell the good and the bad, I just know that if I show my face, I will only tell the good and what fun is that to read, if you know it is STILL ME behind all of my shiny posts? I am not a perfect person. I never will be.
I guess the harsh reality is that I have everything I have ever wanted. A bright future, a man that adores me (I am so lucky here) and future financial stability. But, there is always something. Starting with a mean girl sister-in-law is something not to be ignored.
Showing posts with label Mean Girls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mean Girls. Show all posts
Monday, December 2, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Teenage Turmoil
Today, I had many things planned. I am currently checking my list off. All of the months of tomorrow are here. There are no more tomorrows.....it is time to get things done once and for all!
I was on my way to the library to work (in order to make the weight loss stick, I have to change my spaces and working at cafes is no longer an option for me as I was using cookies as bribes to myself to finish tasks....) when I received a call from my favorite teenager, Emma, asking me to join her for lunch. Emma and I have a special bond. I babysat her from the time she was born. I spent some vacations and summers with her family. We are 15 years apart in age, but we are super similar. We like the same music, the same food, the same clothes, the same movie stars, and we are both tall and statuesque women. We have both been teased many times for being big (tall ) and fat (over a size 8 in my community), she has been called a Sasquatch, where I was called an ogre.
SIDENOTE: If I looked like her in a bikini, I would never wear clothes. Teenagers are fools. Skinny is great, but the reality is that it is not the only acceptable body type out there.
Today, Emma had a half day from school. Today, she was ditched by a group of her "friends" that she was supposed to go to lunch with.
When she called me, I could hear the hurt in her voice. I know this very feeling. The way your heart can ache. The burn you get in your throat trying to hold back the tears and smile through it. The emptiness and anxiety that clouds your brain. I didn't hesitate for a moment. "Let's meet for lunch, anywhere you want, my treat."
As she sobbed into her burrito, I held her hand and told her all the things I WISH someone would have said to me. I shared, "It is only high school, none of this matters, seriously. Study and focus on you and college is all about starting over. Girls are mean. This town is tough. Mean girls grow into mean ladies and you are better than this. Be yourself and be true to your heart. If someone hurts you, then cross them off your list. Be kind to them, but don't trust them. There is more to life than this silly suburb. Grades first and then off to college being the girl you want to be."
When I moved back home with my folks a year and a half ago, my anxiety spiraled out of control. All of my best laid plans didn't exist anymore and I was lonely, embarrassed, and really uncomfortable. I hated high school. I had left this suburb at 18 years old and besides 6 weeks that I lived at home in between finishing college and starting my first real job, I never lived in the town I spent the later part of my childhood. Because I HATED it. Because I HATED the people. Because being home meant being reminded of the hurt and despair I felt in high school.
I have been hiding out for 18 months. That was hard to admit, but it is the truth. I don't go places I think I may see anyone from my past because I don't want to face it. I am almost ready to share one of my lowest moments to date regarding an absolute explosion of work and life that happened in September, but I am still processing it. I am still aching from it. It will be coming soon......I promise.
BUT, the rainbow in this (shit) storm of breaking up with Awful AND moving home was reconnecting with Emma. She was starting her sophomore year of high school when I moved back and she was going through lots of the same angst I had lived through at the very same high school. We started bonding over shared experiences and the advice I could give at age 30 was more relevant to her than anything her parents were sharing, even if it was mostly the same. Emma started helping me with my work, excelling at school, and last night was even inducted into The National Honors Society. Her parents tell me I gave her this confidence and I believe it. Her life turned around when I came home. I can't think of a better compliment and I do think our reconnection was meant to be.
Being close to Emma allows me to press the reset button a bit. To live vicariously through a young gal who may have ended up in a pit of self doubt, self hate, and low self esteem like me, but didn't. She picked right when I chose left at that fork in the road and she is making better decisions at 17 than I ever did. She has helped me put closure on high school. On the 4 years of my life I wish I could do over. On the time that I picked popularity over everything else.....and it only got me right back home at age 30 with only 1 real friend from high school.
Over the weekend, Crush was looking through old photos and stumbled upon a few of my high school friends. Even though I explained previously, that high school wasn't my favorite time, he was curious about them, wanted to know what they were up to, and wasn't taking the hint that I didn't want to talk about it. After continuing to ask me several questions about them, I finally snapped, "I have no idea, they are all crazy bitches...." Indeed, by my reaction, I was the only crazy bitch.
But, there is a part of me that is still a bit angry. I was such a cool person then. I was also innocent. I had no idea of my potential and I closed a few doors in the process because I didn't believe in myself. Because I listened and took very seriously the critiques thrown my way: fat, stupid, annoying, and ugly. I even believed I was a slut and a possible lesbian because the girls in my grade told me I was even though I didn't have any real sexual experiences until after high school and never thought of girls as anything, but friends.
The things I was accused of, they weren't true and the way I felt I had to act, that wasn't me.
As I munched on my salad today, I told Emma a piece of advice that I hope stays with her:
"Nothing now really matters unless you let it. I let people hurt me, I allowed myself to be broken by girls I never really respected. I wasted so many years of my life being angry. Please do what you can to not end up like me, to not end up hateful of things that happened half a lifetime ago. If you don't like the game, don't play it. In 1 year (she is graduating early), none of this matters, so in the meantime, become yourself. Crack your shell open and be the person your truly are inside."
I have a feeling that she will listen.
Now, I have to follow my own advice.
I have to close these doors and lock them and not take any past issues with me down South.
I deserve better, just like Emma.
I was on my way to the library to work (in order to make the weight loss stick, I have to change my spaces and working at cafes is no longer an option for me as I was using cookies as bribes to myself to finish tasks....) when I received a call from my favorite teenager, Emma, asking me to join her for lunch. Emma and I have a special bond. I babysat her from the time she was born. I spent some vacations and summers with her family. We are 15 years apart in age, but we are super similar. We like the same music, the same food, the same clothes, the same movie stars, and we are both tall and statuesque women. We have both been teased many times for being big (tall ) and fat (over a size 8 in my community), she has been called a Sasquatch, where I was called an ogre.
SIDENOTE: If I looked like her in a bikini, I would never wear clothes. Teenagers are fools. Skinny is great, but the reality is that it is not the only acceptable body type out there.
Today, Emma had a half day from school. Today, she was ditched by a group of her "friends" that she was supposed to go to lunch with.
When she called me, I could hear the hurt in her voice. I know this very feeling. The way your heart can ache. The burn you get in your throat trying to hold back the tears and smile through it. The emptiness and anxiety that clouds your brain. I didn't hesitate for a moment. "Let's meet for lunch, anywhere you want, my treat."
As she sobbed into her burrito, I held her hand and told her all the things I WISH someone would have said to me. I shared, "It is only high school, none of this matters, seriously. Study and focus on you and college is all about starting over. Girls are mean. This town is tough. Mean girls grow into mean ladies and you are better than this. Be yourself and be true to your heart. If someone hurts you, then cross them off your list. Be kind to them, but don't trust them. There is more to life than this silly suburb. Grades first and then off to college being the girl you want to be."
When I moved back home with my folks a year and a half ago, my anxiety spiraled out of control. All of my best laid plans didn't exist anymore and I was lonely, embarrassed, and really uncomfortable. I hated high school. I had left this suburb at 18 years old and besides 6 weeks that I lived at home in between finishing college and starting my first real job, I never lived in the town I spent the later part of my childhood. Because I HATED it. Because I HATED the people. Because being home meant being reminded of the hurt and despair I felt in high school.
I have been hiding out for 18 months. That was hard to admit, but it is the truth. I don't go places I think I may see anyone from my past because I don't want to face it. I am almost ready to share one of my lowest moments to date regarding an absolute explosion of work and life that happened in September, but I am still processing it. I am still aching from it. It will be coming soon......I promise.
BUT, the rainbow in this (shit) storm of breaking up with Awful AND moving home was reconnecting with Emma. She was starting her sophomore year of high school when I moved back and she was going through lots of the same angst I had lived through at the very same high school. We started bonding over shared experiences and the advice I could give at age 30 was more relevant to her than anything her parents were sharing, even if it was mostly the same. Emma started helping me with my work, excelling at school, and last night was even inducted into The National Honors Society. Her parents tell me I gave her this confidence and I believe it. Her life turned around when I came home. I can't think of a better compliment and I do think our reconnection was meant to be.
Being close to Emma allows me to press the reset button a bit. To live vicariously through a young gal who may have ended up in a pit of self doubt, self hate, and low self esteem like me, but didn't. She picked right when I chose left at that fork in the road and she is making better decisions at 17 than I ever did. She has helped me put closure on high school. On the 4 years of my life I wish I could do over. On the time that I picked popularity over everything else.....and it only got me right back home at age 30 with only 1 real friend from high school.
Over the weekend, Crush was looking through old photos and stumbled upon a few of my high school friends. Even though I explained previously, that high school wasn't my favorite time, he was curious about them, wanted to know what they were up to, and wasn't taking the hint that I didn't want to talk about it. After continuing to ask me several questions about them, I finally snapped, "I have no idea, they are all crazy bitches...." Indeed, by my reaction, I was the only crazy bitch.
But, there is a part of me that is still a bit angry. I was such a cool person then. I was also innocent. I had no idea of my potential and I closed a few doors in the process because I didn't believe in myself. Because I listened and took very seriously the critiques thrown my way: fat, stupid, annoying, and ugly. I even believed I was a slut and a possible lesbian because the girls in my grade told me I was even though I didn't have any real sexual experiences until after high school and never thought of girls as anything, but friends.
The things I was accused of, they weren't true and the way I felt I had to act, that wasn't me.
As I munched on my salad today, I told Emma a piece of advice that I hope stays with her:
"Nothing now really matters unless you let it. I let people hurt me, I allowed myself to be broken by girls I never really respected. I wasted so many years of my life being angry. Please do what you can to not end up like me, to not end up hateful of things that happened half a lifetime ago. If you don't like the game, don't play it. In 1 year (she is graduating early), none of this matters, so in the meantime, become yourself. Crack your shell open and be the person your truly are inside."
I have a feeling that she will listen.
Now, I have to follow my own advice.
I have to close these doors and lock them and not take any past issues with me down South.
I deserve better, just like Emma.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Mean Girls and A Pack of Wolves and Lessons Learned
I spend too much time wondering what people think about me.
Lately, I have gotten a bit over myself and dried my eyes and realized that if I am talking shit about someone, they are probably talking shit about me. What goes around, comes around, and it is life.
I have recently been practicing holding my tongue a bit. Censoring myself. This mostly comes to not saying things like, "the barrista liked you, I could tell, he was just staring at the huge bulge in your pants and it made me very proud to be with you, " in front of Crush while he buys me my vanilla latte. Sometimes I get a bit carried away. And Crush wears his jeans a little snug.....my bestie calls them "Texas Jeans" and she is from Texas, so she would know. There is nothing quite as nice as fitted (NOT TIGHT) jeans on a man....YUM YUM YUM! Strong thighs and a cute tush....bring it on.
Growing up in the neighborhood I grew up in really messed me up. Like A LOT. I was much happier before I moved to the place where my parents (and me) still live now. I never really fit in, in my heart, even though I was popular off and on. As soon as I had the chance to flee to college, I never looked back. I stopped returning calls from high school friends, I didn't visit them at their new schools, I changed my phone number, and I didn't come home much for college breaks including summers. I NEVER wanted to come back and yet I did, 5 years after I began college, I came home to work in the city close to my parents and start my real adult life. My heart was never in it.
This place, the place I get to leave in 8 months (WHOOT) is the silliest. People live WAY beyond their financial means to impress, they all like the same ugly things, no one has an original thought, and everyone starves themselves. People who are "best friends" sleep with each other's husbands, they wear the same clothes as their children, and they party all the time....
Clue: Mean Girls the movie was based on where I grew up and yes, it is just that pathetic. Everyone grows up together, goes to college together, moves back together, marries each other, and then publicly divorces in the most hateful and cruel ways. It equals my version of HELL.
I always yearned to go somewhere warmer, to be free of the pack mentality that my little neighborhood provides. The hungry wolves who eat each other's souls instead of eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Even at 10 when I arrived from the East coast, it all felt so silly, so empty, so stupid.....but, I felt that I had to change myself to fit in rather than be who I really was...the person that just started to truly emerge in the last year.
There were two girls that made my life HELL growing up. One I call The Bitch and the other I call The Snake. These two....if I saw them to this day, my heart would drop and the blood in my veins would turn to ice, I just HATE them.
A little back story....
Bitch and I became friends in 5th grade, went to the same Hebrew school, she was kind and sweet and VERY needy and meek as a little one. But, she needed the POWER. The boys, the girls, the older kids...she liked conflict and drama. These are the things I have always hated. I knew the minute I left the room, Bitch would scheme and rally a plan against me....to bring me down to make me feel like a nothing. Everyone got a turn in our group and mine came often.
Snake and I became friends in 8th grade. My mom met her mom through a business interaction and her mom begged my mom to have her included in our group. Meh, it was super awkward. Especially because I always felt very weird being alone with Snake......she was just not like the other girls I was used to hanging out with. No one wanted her to come and everyone, mostly Bitch, made my life hell because my mom was making me bring Snake around to our sleepovers and trips to mall. You all know where this is going right.....?
Bitch and Snake became best friends and who was kicked out, why yes, me. I have never truly forgiven my mom for this...I know, I like to hold on to things....but, I promise you all, I will never interfere with friend politics one day when I have children. Sometimes I like to think about what high school would have been like if Snake wasn't around.
Snake and Bitch were then inseparable. They also became anorexic together (the true standard of beauty in my neighborhood is simply who is the skinniest, horse faces aside). They left everyone else out. The started rumors about me....one being that I was a lesbian which is ironic and I will touch on that later in this post.
When they got caught with booze or pot, it was always mine and everyone believed I was this super bad kid that I wasn't. I truly didn't even know how to get the pot they were smoking.....people's parents began to not want me around. I had this bad reputation for nothing. My vices were Hershey Bars and Fritos.
One day when Bitch's brother drove us home from school....I realize now that it was a set up, he started in on how he was going to go to the cops because he found MY POT in Bitch's room and he didn't like my influence on her and I should thank him for not going to the authorities because Bitch begged him not to and then he called me a "fat cunt" and stopped the car in the middle of a busy street and told me to get out. It was December and freezing and he was home from college for Xmas break...he was a sophomore in college and I was a sophomore in high school......and I didn't tell my parents because I knew my dad would go over to his house and kick his ass and come after winter break...it would make it all so much worse when I had to return to school. It wasn't my pot of course, it never was.
Sidenote: Once, when I was in college, I saw Bitch's brother smoking pot at a concert and went right up to him and told him I was going to call the cops. He looked at me blankly, stoned out of his mind trying to place what I was saying and who I was (I was quite thin at the time) and I walked away......I am sure he had no idea the emotional damage he did to me when he kicked me out of the car. To this day, being called a "fat cunt" something that sadly happens from time to time with clients (because some are from my neighborhood and I won't work with them anymore for the most part...but, fat cunt seems like a really popular insult around here) triggers something inside of me that keeps me in bed for days.
Bitch and Snake told people I said things about them that I never did. I woke up one day without any friends, it was like a nightmare. Oh my, if there was Facebook....it would have been epic, the level of bullying these 2 would have done. I am glad there wasn't because I don't know if I would have survived. I hated confrontation and still do. I didn't know how to handle all of this nastiness.
I will say, after a while, I let them win and disappeared. I made friends from other schools. I turned to books and food. This is the time I truly began to cope by eating and not feeling. To top it off, my mom's brother was having a nervous breakdown and declared bankruptcy and I didn't feel like I could really burden my parents with my drama. Especially because my uncle was living in my house at the time. I became utterly depressed and didn't really talk about it. I stocked up on junk food at the local convenience store and got into bed and read YM and Jane and cried and ate Cheetos. I felt like a failure. Instead of rocking grades and whatnot, I started really slipping. I felt like if I couldn't have friends.....I couldn't have any other success in life.
After high school as I mentioned earlier, I disappeared. I went to college broken. But, I made real friends. A few who I love and cherish like sisters to this day. I didn't believe I was worthy of friends because of high school, but I made them. I also reconnected with a best friend from junior high in my early 20's and we are super close to this day as well...oh how I missed her. Bitch and Snake first kicked her out of the group before they did me in....It kept me up nights on end before we reconnected, why didn't I just stick up for her.
We went to our 10 year high school reunion together and none of the mean girls could show their faces. Karma is truly a Bitch.
Bitch once invited me out sophomore year of college when I was home for a few days over Xmas break. I saw it as a peace treaty and I accepted. She never picked me up. I remember when I got her on the phone a few days later, I told her every single thing I thought abut her. This had been on the tip of my tongue for over 10 years at the time. All she said was sorry and hung up. I think my boldness surprised her into silence. To this day, I have never seen her. God has protected me.
Snake called me junior year of college after stalking my mom for weeks for my cell phone number. She apologized and wanted to see what was new with me....I told her honestly and openly that she will always know inside what she did to me and I will always question why, but I don't ever want to be friends with her and I couldn't accept her apology because I genuinely felt she was apologizing for her....for a deeper reason....it seemed so insincere. I have seen her twice by accident and both times she scurried away from me.
3 years after she called me, Snake married her high school sweetheart (a TOTAL douche who I see from time to time and think very little of) only to divorce him rather messily a few years after that because she finally came out and is now in a loving relationship with a woman. To this day, I think she called me in college to confide that to me, that she was attracted to women and not men. I think she knew inside that I wouldn't have judged her and I would have supported her. I would have.
And bingo! There is was, the secret, the thing that never seemed right. Bitch and Snake loved each other. I knew they had threesomes with people in high school at drunk parties and had this secret bond of sorts and now I truly believe it was because they were absolutely in love with each other and didn't want me to find out. When I was invited to a party, they would call me and tell me I couldn't come because the host said no fat girls aloud. When I wanted to go to a concert, they said I couldn't come because all the parents hated me because I was a "bad kid." When I wanted to go shopping with them after school, they said I would stretch out the clothes....I was a size 8-10 btw...
Because well, I would have been THE PERSON who would have said something heartless, careless, and bold without even thinking about it. I would have exposed them without even realizing I was doing it. I think they feared my mouth as much as I feared their torment. As a team, they stuck it to me before I ever had the chance to call them out. But, I do think I would have figured it out in real time, I am perceptive that way and I think they knew it.
Years later, I will never accept them or acknowledge them, but I understand. I know that being different in high school is hard, even if you are the most popular girls in the grade.
And now I try to keep my words firmly placed in my mouth when they need to stay there. High school is nothing if it doesn't teach you life lessons.
Lately, I have gotten a bit over myself and dried my eyes and realized that if I am talking shit about someone, they are probably talking shit about me. What goes around, comes around, and it is life.
I have recently been practicing holding my tongue a bit. Censoring myself. This mostly comes to not saying things like, "the barrista liked you, I could tell, he was just staring at the huge bulge in your pants and it made me very proud to be with you, " in front of Crush while he buys me my vanilla latte. Sometimes I get a bit carried away. And Crush wears his jeans a little snug.....my bestie calls them "Texas Jeans" and she is from Texas, so she would know. There is nothing quite as nice as fitted (NOT TIGHT) jeans on a man....YUM YUM YUM! Strong thighs and a cute tush....bring it on.
Growing up in the neighborhood I grew up in really messed me up. Like A LOT. I was much happier before I moved to the place where my parents (and me) still live now. I never really fit in, in my heart, even though I was popular off and on. As soon as I had the chance to flee to college, I never looked back. I stopped returning calls from high school friends, I didn't visit them at their new schools, I changed my phone number, and I didn't come home much for college breaks including summers. I NEVER wanted to come back and yet I did, 5 years after I began college, I came home to work in the city close to my parents and start my real adult life. My heart was never in it.
This place, the place I get to leave in 8 months (WHOOT) is the silliest. People live WAY beyond their financial means to impress, they all like the same ugly things, no one has an original thought, and everyone starves themselves. People who are "best friends" sleep with each other's husbands, they wear the same clothes as their children, and they party all the time....
Clue: Mean Girls the movie was based on where I grew up and yes, it is just that pathetic. Everyone grows up together, goes to college together, moves back together, marries each other, and then publicly divorces in the most hateful and cruel ways. It equals my version of HELL.
I always yearned to go somewhere warmer, to be free of the pack mentality that my little neighborhood provides. The hungry wolves who eat each other's souls instead of eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Even at 10 when I arrived from the East coast, it all felt so silly, so empty, so stupid.....but, I felt that I had to change myself to fit in rather than be who I really was...the person that just started to truly emerge in the last year.
There were two girls that made my life HELL growing up. One I call The Bitch and the other I call The Snake. These two....if I saw them to this day, my heart would drop and the blood in my veins would turn to ice, I just HATE them.
A little back story....
Bitch and I became friends in 5th grade, went to the same Hebrew school, she was kind and sweet and VERY needy and meek as a little one. But, she needed the POWER. The boys, the girls, the older kids...she liked conflict and drama. These are the things I have always hated. I knew the minute I left the room, Bitch would scheme and rally a plan against me....to bring me down to make me feel like a nothing. Everyone got a turn in our group and mine came often.
Snake and I became friends in 8th grade. My mom met her mom through a business interaction and her mom begged my mom to have her included in our group. Meh, it was super awkward. Especially because I always felt very weird being alone with Snake......she was just not like the other girls I was used to hanging out with. No one wanted her to come and everyone, mostly Bitch, made my life hell because my mom was making me bring Snake around to our sleepovers and trips to mall. You all know where this is going right.....?
Bitch and Snake became best friends and who was kicked out, why yes, me. I have never truly forgiven my mom for this...I know, I like to hold on to things....but, I promise you all, I will never interfere with friend politics one day when I have children. Sometimes I like to think about what high school would have been like if Snake wasn't around.
Snake and Bitch were then inseparable. They also became anorexic together (the true standard of beauty in my neighborhood is simply who is the skinniest, horse faces aside). They left everyone else out. The started rumors about me....one being that I was a lesbian which is ironic and I will touch on that later in this post.
When they got caught with booze or pot, it was always mine and everyone believed I was this super bad kid that I wasn't. I truly didn't even know how to get the pot they were smoking.....people's parents began to not want me around. I had this bad reputation for nothing. My vices were Hershey Bars and Fritos.
One day when Bitch's brother drove us home from school....I realize now that it was a set up, he started in on how he was going to go to the cops because he found MY POT in Bitch's room and he didn't like my influence on her and I should thank him for not going to the authorities because Bitch begged him not to and then he called me a "fat cunt" and stopped the car in the middle of a busy street and told me to get out. It was December and freezing and he was home from college for Xmas break...he was a sophomore in college and I was a sophomore in high school......and I didn't tell my parents because I knew my dad would go over to his house and kick his ass and come after winter break...it would make it all so much worse when I had to return to school. It wasn't my pot of course, it never was.
Sidenote: Once, when I was in college, I saw Bitch's brother smoking pot at a concert and went right up to him and told him I was going to call the cops. He looked at me blankly, stoned out of his mind trying to place what I was saying and who I was (I was quite thin at the time) and I walked away......I am sure he had no idea the emotional damage he did to me when he kicked me out of the car. To this day, being called a "fat cunt" something that sadly happens from time to time with clients (because some are from my neighborhood and I won't work with them anymore for the most part...but, fat cunt seems like a really popular insult around here) triggers something inside of me that keeps me in bed for days.
Bitch and Snake told people I said things about them that I never did. I woke up one day without any friends, it was like a nightmare. Oh my, if there was Facebook....it would have been epic, the level of bullying these 2 would have done. I am glad there wasn't because I don't know if I would have survived. I hated confrontation and still do. I didn't know how to handle all of this nastiness.
I will say, after a while, I let them win and disappeared. I made friends from other schools. I turned to books and food. This is the time I truly began to cope by eating and not feeling. To top it off, my mom's brother was having a nervous breakdown and declared bankruptcy and I didn't feel like I could really burden my parents with my drama. Especially because my uncle was living in my house at the time. I became utterly depressed and didn't really talk about it. I stocked up on junk food at the local convenience store and got into bed and read YM and Jane and cried and ate Cheetos. I felt like a failure. Instead of rocking grades and whatnot, I started really slipping. I felt like if I couldn't have friends.....I couldn't have any other success in life.
After high school as I mentioned earlier, I disappeared. I went to college broken. But, I made real friends. A few who I love and cherish like sisters to this day. I didn't believe I was worthy of friends because of high school, but I made them. I also reconnected with a best friend from junior high in my early 20's and we are super close to this day as well...oh how I missed her. Bitch and Snake first kicked her out of the group before they did me in....It kept me up nights on end before we reconnected, why didn't I just stick up for her.
We went to our 10 year high school reunion together and none of the mean girls could show their faces. Karma is truly a Bitch.
Bitch once invited me out sophomore year of college when I was home for a few days over Xmas break. I saw it as a peace treaty and I accepted. She never picked me up. I remember when I got her on the phone a few days later, I told her every single thing I thought abut her. This had been on the tip of my tongue for over 10 years at the time. All she said was sorry and hung up. I think my boldness surprised her into silence. To this day, I have never seen her. God has protected me.
Snake called me junior year of college after stalking my mom for weeks for my cell phone number. She apologized and wanted to see what was new with me....I told her honestly and openly that she will always know inside what she did to me and I will always question why, but I don't ever want to be friends with her and I couldn't accept her apology because I genuinely felt she was apologizing for her....for a deeper reason....it seemed so insincere. I have seen her twice by accident and both times she scurried away from me.
3 years after she called me, Snake married her high school sweetheart (a TOTAL douche who I see from time to time and think very little of) only to divorce him rather messily a few years after that because she finally came out and is now in a loving relationship with a woman. To this day, I think she called me in college to confide that to me, that she was attracted to women and not men. I think she knew inside that I wouldn't have judged her and I would have supported her. I would have.
And bingo! There is was, the secret, the thing that never seemed right. Bitch and Snake loved each other. I knew they had threesomes with people in high school at drunk parties and had this secret bond of sorts and now I truly believe it was because they were absolutely in love with each other and didn't want me to find out. When I was invited to a party, they would call me and tell me I couldn't come because the host said no fat girls aloud. When I wanted to go to a concert, they said I couldn't come because all the parents hated me because I was a "bad kid." When I wanted to go shopping with them after school, they said I would stretch out the clothes....I was a size 8-10 btw...
Because well, I would have been THE PERSON who would have said something heartless, careless, and bold without even thinking about it. I would have exposed them without even realizing I was doing it. I think they feared my mouth as much as I feared their torment. As a team, they stuck it to me before I ever had the chance to call them out. But, I do think I would have figured it out in real time, I am perceptive that way and I think they knew it.
Years later, I will never accept them or acknowledge them, but I understand. I know that being different in high school is hard, even if you are the most popular girls in the grade.
And now I try to keep my words firmly placed in my mouth when they need to stay there. High school is nothing if it doesn't teach you life lessons.
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