I believe that people make or break a party.
You can spend $100 or a $1,000,000, but without good people who are there for the right reasons....it does not matter how much you spend. A get together of any kind depends on the people there. Great people make for great times.
After I posted last night, I received a heartfelt comment asking me this....:
What is stopping you from being the lady you always wanted to be in your heart now as opposed to when you move?
The answer is simply the people.
I know it seems too easy. I know it seems like I am passing blame....I know I seem weak that I cannot overcome my past. Some may think I am escaping. Fleeing a place that I can't survive in. I get all this. I really do. Some people are less influenced by public opinion. This is something I am working on.
I am going to tell you a little story that I touched on briefly months ago when I posted about Bitch and Snake. I consider it now a pivotal situation that shaped my life and my honesty. The story connects very much to how people where I live handle the truth and how I came to choose lies to avoid backlash until rather recently.
Here we go!
My Mom has 2 brothers. Both Ivy League, both geniuses in their own way. 1 a doctor and 1 a lawyer. These brothers are close in age (2.5 years apart whereas my mom is 6 years younger than the middle brother) and were always in competition. My Mom was exempt from this. As the baby, as the only daughter, and since she has a slight physical disability...well, she was coddled and favored and not put into the severe pressure cooker that her brothers had to endure.
My Mom's oldest brother (and my favorite uncle) is a real success story. He is just beyond words. Hugely successful and admired in his field. He is simply awe inducing. I cannot believe that he is my Mom's brother sometimes...that they actually came from the same parents, he is just so intelligent and a phenomenal person.
My mom's middle brother....well, he is a genius, too. But, different. He struggled with mental illness, specifically depression and bipolar disorder most of his life. But, he still accomplished so much. He went to Harvard Law School. He graduated top of his class. He was a law partner at 1 of the most prestigious firms in Manhattan by age 35. He was nothing to scoff at. But, during his success, he tried to commit suicide several times. He married and divorced the love of his life. He got into cocaine. He moved to a smaller place and started his own very successful private practice. He married again. He had 2 children. He fell into another bout of depression and tried to kill himself.........he filed for bankruptcy....he hit absolute rock bottom.
And when he had no where to go and no one to turn to, he came to my Mom. His baby sister. He ended up living in my parents' basement when I was 14. He lived with us for 2 full years.
I was born in New York. My parents are New Yorkers. Born and bred. They didn't move to the Midwest until they were in their 40's. New Yorkers own their shit. They talk shit, too. Yes, there are exceptions to my theory, but mostly the truth is the truth out there. I was raised, like my parents were, to tell the truth.
When we moved out here, I remember people were always in disbelief of what I was saying. Not that I was crude, just that I was open. Open about my thoughts, my feelings, and my body. I remember getting the message that this wasn't right. That is wasn't socially acceptable to share what I did and I was always super confused as to why....why was the truth now bad if it was always okay and accepted before?
So, my uncle was living in my basement and my Mom was a bit confused about how to proceed. She, like me, had made new friends who showed her that being honest wasn't always the best way to be if you lived here. She was always very conflicted and would regularly share that people were "talking bad about her and she had no idea why", but unlike me, she really didn't care much and went about her life confidently. My Mom is extremely confidant. I remember her asking me "if we should tell people that my uncle had a nervous breakdown?" and I agreed that it was nothing to me ashamed of. People do have nervous breakdowns sometimes, great people. Geniuses. But, my mom did tell me "that some people here (Midwest) don't like the truth and I don't want you to be brought into this." It was like she knew that this situation may not be acceptable. She felt it.
1 day, Bitch's mom called up my Mom to ask about my uncle. I had been at Bitch's after school and I had asked to use the computer at her house to print something and mentioned that "I hadn't been in my basement for a while because my uncle was down there" and it piqued Momma Bitch's interest.
Blood in the water.
My Mom didn't spin the story when asked. She shared everything. The suicide attempts, the cocaine, the failed marriages, the bankruptcy. Now, I know that I would have done the same thing as her. But, even a few months ago, I wouldn't have. My mom owns her shit. She is awesome this way.
The next day, I went to school and I felt new stares in the hallways. People were treating me differently. At lunch, when I asked what the hell was going on to my "friends", Bitch replied...."My mom told me that your uncle is poor and crazy and sponging off your parents. How pathetic. She also said that your mom said that mental illness runs in your family, so now it all makes sense. You are crazy."
Ahhhh.....I was now known as a crazy person at high school because my mom told the truth.
You see how this little tale got spun? Because of the people.
That year, I got dumped by my friends, I didn't get asked to any dances, and I worked really hard to remove the crazy stigma (ironic now that I suffer from depression). I made new friends from other schools and came back better for it, only to fall for the same tricks again. I was dumped again my senior year for being crazy......and I think some of my depression does come from the idea that other people think I am crazy. I cannot believe I just admitted that, but it is true...I endured bullying. Lots of it. But, this was before Facebook and all that. Sometimes I think that if I lived now as a teenage in my old high school with all of the social media...well, I would have killed myself from the nonstop bullying. At least when I was younger, the bullying existed mostly at school and from being left out, but my emotions were manageable. I could escape the tourture in the hours I didn't have to be at school.
Down South, ...people own their lives. Again a general statement and I am sure exceptions apply here, too.
SIDENOTE: Please know that I share my personal experiences and I try to tow the line with over-generalizing, but I will say things are simply passive-aggressive where I am for me, in my town. I don't want to debate it that much as I know that everyone has their own life experience and the story I am telling is my own.
In the South, some things may be said sweetly, but real life is real. 1 of the reasons my parents got on famously with Crush's was because neither set has secrets. My Mom openly shared her brother's issues, my Dad openly shared his struggles with my Grandmother and his sister, Crush's parents shared personal things that no one in my area would ever openly claim. And they did so without spinning it. Just the truth. A few moments on each subject. No whispers. No judgement. Accept reality and move on.
My parents couldn't believe that during the trip when we ran into Crush's parents friends and something came up, everyone answered candidly, even in front of my folks....this would NEVER happen in my neighborhood....you see here, private information leaks from a trusted source. A person tells someone they trust, like my Mom to Bitch's mom and then stories get passed along and shared, but because people are embarrassed to share their truth in public here, there is no control over what gets out.
Here is an example of a real exchange down South that I heard over the weekend:
Crush's mom when seeing an old friend: "How is Dean? Is he enjoying life as a newlywed?"
Old Friend: "Darling...didn't you hear? He is already getting divorced! Love is a complicated thing. But, there were no babies yet, so he will be okay. He learned a lot. Does Ready and Fading have a single sister?"
If this was in my neighborhood, this is how it would have likely gone:
My Mom when seeing an old friend: "How is Dean? Is he enjoying life as a newlywed?"
Old Friend: "Of course (even if the divorce proceeding were already occurring)! He is so happy and we are so happy and we are just praying for grand babies. How are you? How are things? How are the girls? (SUBJECT CHANGE)."
Then my Mom would find out a few weeks later than Dean was getting divorced and her feelings would be hurt that her old friend didn't tell her, but she would be forced to understand that the lie was to "save face" and done in "protection."
Aren't you all confused?
I am!!!
So, to sum this all up.....when I moved home less than 2 years ago, I didn't realize how much pain and emotional distress coming home to a place with the people I avoided for over 12 years would bother me. I thought that I would be safe. I thought people would understand the distress I was enduring. No one did. No one cared. I didn't want sympathy, I wanted understanding. I hide out because it is easier for me than it is to face the reality that my life is not what other people here think it should be. I am okay with this. I am weak here and I know it. It is an issue that I am trying to work through in therapy and something I have been dealing with for 2/3s of my life. It ain't pretty, but it is mine.
I am excited to start over and to be given the opportunity to wipe my slate clean. To be the honest, open, free person I have always wanted to be in a place that accepts this type of behavior.
You see, down South, "crazy people" are simply "characters" and everyone loves a character!
The people here, are not privy to my party.
Showing posts with label The Bitch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Bitch. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Friday, March 8, 2013
Real Friends, Internet Friends,THANK YOU, Honesty, and Getting Up After You Have Been Knocked Down...The Most Random and Honest Post Ever
In the last year, I have learned who my true friends are.
It took an Awful breakup, a move back home, and a BIG step towards full self-improvement, self-respect, and self-confidence.
My real friends stood by me each and every step of the way.
These people have seen me through ups and downs. Have stalked me down when I couldn't turn up for events or get out of bed. Even when I post here now and I am down, I get wonderful texts from a real friend on the West coast who is checking in to support me, love me, and be there for me....from thousands of miles away. I am lucky.
Internet friends (and some real friends, too) THANK YOU all for reading and for letting me share my honesty. I thank you all for believing in me. The virtual support, advice, and love is inspiring. There are so many wonderful people in this world. I forget this sometimes when I let my bitter and bad bite me. This blog is cleansing. It has helped me be a better person, a kinder soul, and most importantly, honest. I have been fighting with honesty for as long as I can remember......
I think my lying started as a defense mechanism when I was young, before I can even really consciously remember. From therapy, I am piecing together that I do think being called "fat and big" by many people including my grandmother, family friends, and peers at school (I can remember being taunted in nursery school) made me create an alternate reality of sorts to protect myself. Instead of being fat, I wanted to be wonderful. I needed to be loved, I needed to be adored, I needed to be admired, and I needed to distract the world from calling me fat so much, so I lied. Sometimes, I remember blurting something random out to distract people from calling me fat when I felt like they were going to say it.
I remember not lying from 3rd grade when I started over in a new school and wasn't called fat for a while until 6th grade when I was publicly mocked and taunted for an entire year by the most popular boys in school one year older than me. Being circled and being chanted "Ogre" at still haunts me. As I have been processing my past pain, it is something I have nightmares about from time to time. There is nothing worse than public humiliation. It is one of the reasons I don't even believe in negative reviews for restaurants or service professionals online. I like to go to the source and let my feelings be known directly because I am so sensitive of being a bully. It is why I get pushed around in business, too.
After junior high, I got my lying in check for a while until my uncle had a nervous breakdown, lost his very high profile job, and went bankrupt. He got divorced for the second time, lost custody of his 2 children, had shock therapy, and lived in my parents' basement. For over 1 year....the same year Sissy went to college and my Nana who I adored, passed away. It was my sophomore year of high school and Bitch and Snake had just really gotten their fangs into me good. I fell apart. My mom confided in some ladies from the neighborhood (and Bitch's and Snake's moms) and they gossiped horribly about my family, spun tales, and mocked us. It is what people around here do and one of the reasons why helping clients from these parts sometimes snipes me. It is popular to jump on the bandwagon and kick people when they are down and that isn't how I was raised or how my heart works. Not to totally generalize an area, but it is very vicious, and stupid, and silly, and catty and really pathetic. I lied ever since high school until lately in some capacity.
My lies weren't huge and were mostly exaggerations. I knew when I was lying, too, so that is easier to fix. I have been practicing some tactics for over a year and it has really made the truth the way with me. I think this is why 2 of my clients fired me. Because there are more liars than honest people in my industry and I didn't want to hustle anymore. I think they took the shift in my personality as giving up when it was actually getting better.
Yesterday and today, I have been calling vendors personally and admitting I lost a client and made mistakes. They have all complimented my honesty and said that they have ALL been fired, too. It is simply a part of business and learning lessons. They all thanked me for allowing them to keep the client and for admitting fault. It was the right thing to do.
I went to coffee with a fantastic entrepreneur and young businessman yesterday and asked him for advice. I told him what I did wrong and he walked me through many of my mistakes step by step and offered me excellent recommendations, guidance, and sympathy. Because I was able to openly say, "I kinda fucked up." Which is the truth. I should have fired the clients before they fired me. No more victim here.
Today, another vendor of mine, who I called to report the firing to, asked to take me to lunch to help. He is going to help me identity the best clients for me and help me finalize my new website which is very close to being done and was delayed for a while while I was sorted out where I was going to live next year city-wise.
And I know all this good is happening because I am honest.
I know this post was random, but this has all been on the tip of my tongue and it feels so yummy to let it all out.
I plan to return some calls this weekend and catch up with real friends and offer my love and support to them, too.
Happy Friday and have a wonderful day!
It took an Awful breakup, a move back home, and a BIG step towards full self-improvement, self-respect, and self-confidence.
My real friends stood by me each and every step of the way.
These people have seen me through ups and downs. Have stalked me down when I couldn't turn up for events or get out of bed. Even when I post here now and I am down, I get wonderful texts from a real friend on the West coast who is checking in to support me, love me, and be there for me....from thousands of miles away. I am lucky.
Internet friends (and some real friends, too) THANK YOU all for reading and for letting me share my honesty. I thank you all for believing in me. The virtual support, advice, and love is inspiring. There are so many wonderful people in this world. I forget this sometimes when I let my bitter and bad bite me. This blog is cleansing. It has helped me be a better person, a kinder soul, and most importantly, honest. I have been fighting with honesty for as long as I can remember......
I think my lying started as a defense mechanism when I was young, before I can even really consciously remember. From therapy, I am piecing together that I do think being called "fat and big" by many people including my grandmother, family friends, and peers at school (I can remember being taunted in nursery school) made me create an alternate reality of sorts to protect myself. Instead of being fat, I wanted to be wonderful. I needed to be loved, I needed to be adored, I needed to be admired, and I needed to distract the world from calling me fat so much, so I lied. Sometimes, I remember blurting something random out to distract people from calling me fat when I felt like they were going to say it.
I remember not lying from 3rd grade when I started over in a new school and wasn't called fat for a while until 6th grade when I was publicly mocked and taunted for an entire year by the most popular boys in school one year older than me. Being circled and being chanted "Ogre" at still haunts me. As I have been processing my past pain, it is something I have nightmares about from time to time. There is nothing worse than public humiliation. It is one of the reasons I don't even believe in negative reviews for restaurants or service professionals online. I like to go to the source and let my feelings be known directly because I am so sensitive of being a bully. It is why I get pushed around in business, too.
After junior high, I got my lying in check for a while until my uncle had a nervous breakdown, lost his very high profile job, and went bankrupt. He got divorced for the second time, lost custody of his 2 children, had shock therapy, and lived in my parents' basement. For over 1 year....the same year Sissy went to college and my Nana who I adored, passed away. It was my sophomore year of high school and Bitch and Snake had just really gotten their fangs into me good. I fell apart. My mom confided in some ladies from the neighborhood (and Bitch's and Snake's moms) and they gossiped horribly about my family, spun tales, and mocked us. It is what people around here do and one of the reasons why helping clients from these parts sometimes snipes me. It is popular to jump on the bandwagon and kick people when they are down and that isn't how I was raised or how my heart works. Not to totally generalize an area, but it is very vicious, and stupid, and silly, and catty and really pathetic. I lied ever since high school until lately in some capacity.
My lies weren't huge and were mostly exaggerations. I knew when I was lying, too, so that is easier to fix. I have been practicing some tactics for over a year and it has really made the truth the way with me. I think this is why 2 of my clients fired me. Because there are more liars than honest people in my industry and I didn't want to hustle anymore. I think they took the shift in my personality as giving up when it was actually getting better.
Yesterday and today, I have been calling vendors personally and admitting I lost a client and made mistakes. They have all complimented my honesty and said that they have ALL been fired, too. It is simply a part of business and learning lessons. They all thanked me for allowing them to keep the client and for admitting fault. It was the right thing to do.
I went to coffee with a fantastic entrepreneur and young businessman yesterday and asked him for advice. I told him what I did wrong and he walked me through many of my mistakes step by step and offered me excellent recommendations, guidance, and sympathy. Because I was able to openly say, "I kinda fucked up." Which is the truth. I should have fired the clients before they fired me. No more victim here.
Today, another vendor of mine, who I called to report the firing to, asked to take me to lunch to help. He is going to help me identity the best clients for me and help me finalize my new website which is very close to being done and was delayed for a while while I was sorted out where I was going to live next year city-wise.
And I know all this good is happening because I am honest.
I know this post was random, but this has all been on the tip of my tongue and it feels so yummy to let it all out.
I plan to return some calls this weekend and catch up with real friends and offer my love and support to them, too.
Happy Friday and have a wonderful day!
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)