Ann Landers
I moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina the summer before eighth grade. It didn’t take me long to notice that my new classmates were a lot more interested in dating than my old friends had been. Girls on the bus continually talked about who was “going with” who. At first I didn’t know what they meant. Having a boyfriend at twelve or thirteen? I was totally not ready for that!
Still, I was all ears when it came to other people’s love lives. A boy named Garth was a major subject of gossip. Every other day, the rumors had him going out with a different girl. He was a year behind me, but he rode my bus so I knew who he was. He was blond and cute and very smooth. I thought he was a little too in love with himself, but I could see why he was popular.
Garth never seemed to pay much attention to me. Not that I expected him to—I was a new kid, sort of a nerd and not what most people would call pretty. So I was totally surprised when he called me up at home one day in February. He called to say he liked me. A lot. Me!
A day or two later, he took the seat behind me on the bus and started talking in a quiet, serious voice. He talked about himself, about the hard life he’d had.
“We moved a lot when I was a kid,” he said. “So I never had a best friend. And maybe because of that, I’ve always been a loner. I can act friendly on the outside, but I always keep the real, deep parts of me hidden.”
He leaned closer to me. “I guess I’m just too sensitive,” he said. “I feel things, I take things really hard . . . so, I don’t want people to get close.”
I got off the bus thinking that I hadn’t really been fair to Garth. He wasn’t stuck up. That was just a face he put on, so people wouldn’t know how sensitive he was. I felt sorry for him. He was so nice—and so unhappy!
A few days after that, Garth came by my house after school. We stood around on my porch talking for a long time. It was cold, but we didn’t care. Actually, we didn’t notice. We were too involved in our conversation.
“I have to tell you,” he said. “I think I’m falling in love with you. You’re just so amazing, so perfect—”
“No, I’m not!” I said, blushing.
“You are!” he insisted. “You’re beautiful, you have great manners. . . .”
I’m not good with compliments even when I know they’re true. But when they’re not true, and I wish they were . . . “I’m not beautiful,” I said. “I’m not even pretty.”
“You are beautiful,” said Garth. He put his arm around me. It felt strange, but I didn’t try to stop him. “Look,” he said. “I’ve gone with a lot of girls, and I know. You’re special. You really are.”
I shook my head, but I didn’t try to argue.
“Listen,” said Garth. “Tell you what—I’ll help you stop saying bad things about yourself, if you’ll help me stop being so sensitive. Okay?”
I smiled at him. “Okay,” I said.
He held me closer and bent his head like he was going to kiss me. I didn’t know what to do. I turned away suddenly, and his face just brushed my cheek. I felt kind of clumsy, but I was glad he’d missed. I wasn’t ready for kissing, and I honestly didn’t like him “that way.”
I felt all mixed up inside. I was happy and excited and totally flattered, but something still felt wrong. For one thing, I felt like I was pretending to love him when I really didn’t. Shouldn’t I tell him the truth? But how? And how could he be in love with me, anyway? He hardly knew me!
Just then my mom turned on the outside light, and Garth let go of me fast. He said, “See you tomorrow!” and took off down the road.
The house felt stuffy and warm after all that time outside. I dropped my books in the kitchen and ran up to my bedroom to think.
I really only liked Garth as a friend, but his arm did feel nice around me. And it was kind of cool having someone in love with me. I told myself it wasn’t like I had to do anything about it. What did “going out” with someone mean anyway, besides just spending time together? I could just tell him I wasn’t ready for kissing—couldn’t I?
The next day on the bus, Garth acted like nothing had happened between us. He acted like we were just friends. I told myself he wanted to play it down so the other kids wouldn’t tease us. But his acting seemed a little too good.
For the next few days, whenever we were alone, Garth talked about how he loved me. But when other people were around, he acted like we were just friends. Of course, I was just friends with him, but the whole thing was starting to bother me. Was he ashamed of liking me? Or was he lying about it in the first place? Why would he lie?
A week went by, and after that, I hardly saw Garth at all. That was okay. I didn’t exactly miss him. I was so confused about him, about what had happened and about what it meant. Then about a month later, I heard something that helped me understand.
I was on the bus when I heard a girl mention Garth’s name. “It’s disgusting,” she said. “They actually brag about how many girls they’ve kissed! Garth’s got the most, of course.”
“Yeah,” said her friend. “Like every seventh- and eighth-grade girl in the school! I hear he’s working on the ninth-graders now.”
I felt like I’d been hit in the stomach. I just wanted to crawl under the seat and die. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have believed a single one of his ridiculous lies?
It took me a while, but eventually I got over it. After all, he fooled a lot of girls, not just me. I just wished I’d listened to that voice in my head that said something was wrong. Now I know better. I know that you should always listen to that little warning voice, because it’s usually right.
Laura Gene Beck
© 2005 Lahre Shiflet.
Okay to Be Me
Each individual woman’s body demands to be accepted on its own terms.
Gloria Steinem
“Miss Piggy!” she yelled loud enough for all of our classmates to hear but just out of earshot of the teacher. Unable to think of a quick and clever enough comeback, I simply responded with, “Shut up.” Although my birth name was Monica, my own personal elementary school bully had dubbed me with a new title—“Miss Piggy.”
The bully made my days in elementary school torturous. I am not sure why I was given the honor of being her daily target, but that was the case most of the time. It wasn’t like she would beat me up or anything; as a matter of fact, she never even tried to put her hands on me. She only beat me down with her words, which sometimes hurt more than any blow to the body ever could. Even if she did try to sock me, her fist might have gotten lost in the abyss of flabbiness. Or perhaps it would have bounced back and knocked her out. Weighing in at 140 pounds at the age of eight, I couldn’t blame her for her remarks, despite the fact that she was no skinny-mini herself.
After school one day, I came home in tears because of the teasing that I had endured from the bully.
“Oh, Sweetie, you’re not fat—you’re just big boned,” said Mom, in an attempt to make me feel better. I was too worked up from my crying frenzy to respond. But I thought, Just how big can a bone really be? I’ve never seen a human skeleton in any books or on TV that had big bones, only dinosaurs. She led me down the hall so that we could stand in front of the full-length mirror on the bathroom door. She placed me in front of the mirror, stood behind me and said, “Monica, just look at those almond-shaped eyes and that beautiful skin.”
I stared . . . and stared . . . and stared some more. I saw nothing. As I continued, a fresh batch of tears began to gather on my bottom lids. The liquid expanded over my eyeballs blurring my vision and morphing my image in the mirror. The more I stared, the more I started to look like . . . Miss Piggy.
Mom would always say that I was pretty. I never saw in myself what she saw in me. She was probably just saying all of this to make me feel better or because I was her daughter. As a matter of fact, several adults commented on how attractive I was going to be when I grew up. “Your mom is going to have to build a fence around the house with guard dogs to ke
ep the boys out” is what they would say.
That night I stared in the mirror for hours trying to see those things that they saw—to no avail. I did not—or could not—see the things about me that they saw when I looked in the mirror. What I did see was a fat girl.
The next day at school, the assignment in gym class was to run a mile around the playground. I had never even attempted to run a few feet, and now I was expected to run a mile! Ten times around the playground was a mile, and it was timed. When the gym teacher blew the whistle to begin, I took off with all of my might. About forty-five seconds after I began running, I was sweating profusely and gasping for air.
I kept going though. I walked, jogged, ran, trotted, skipped and galloped. I tried any movement that my body could muster to keep pushing forward. I watched my classmates pass by me one by one out of the corner of my eye. And one by one, I watched as students began to finish. I was only on the fifth lap, which meant I was only halfway done. Pretty soon everyone was done except for me, and I still had two laps to go. I didn’t let that stop me though. As long I still had a morsel of energy left in my body, I was not going to stop.
The class stood by and watched with an array of mixed emotions plastered across their faces as I completed my mile alone. Some people had a hopeful look in their eyes as if they were trying to will me along with eyesight alone, but most looked on with impatience and disgust. I continued to push on, although I only had enough energy left in my body to produce a staggered walk. Finally, drenched with perspiration, I approached the finish line. I was elated that I had completed the mile, but at the same time I felt defeated and embarrassed. When the teacher opened his mouth to speak, I braced myself because I was sure that he was about to use me as an example of what not to do.
The teacher looked at me, then turned to the class and said, “Class, Monica is an excellent example of what it means to try your best and never give up.” Had I heard him correctly? He then continued on to say, “Even though she was the last one to finish, she never quit until she reached her goal.” I somehow stammered a small, “Thanks . . .” as I felt the eyes of my classmates looking at me in admiration.
I may not have been the fastest or the thinnest kid in school, but on that day—at that moment—it felt okay to be me.
Monica Marie Jones
[EDITORS’ NOTE: For more information about developing self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running, log on to www.girlsontherun.org.]
Ugly Girl
Not being beautiful was the true blessing . . .not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources.
Golda Meir
Every school has an ugly girl. In my elementary school, it was me.
I had weak ankles. I kind of walked on the inside of my feet. It’s not like I had a career as an ice skater in my future, but my parents were afraid it would get worse, so from first grade through fourth, I had to wear clunky, heavy orthopedic shoes. They seemed gigantic on my feet, bright white and bubble-toed. The soles were super sturdy, thick like an overdone pancake and about as beautiful. They left marks on regular floors—you should have seen what they did to the gym! Even the laces were gross; extra wide and decorated in a puke-green and brown check pattern. What I would have given to wear slender, lightweight, beautiful shoes just once. I sounded like an overweight elephant wearing bricks whenever I took a single step.
“Hey, Bigfoot!”
“Geez, you’re going to start an earthquake in those clodhoppers!”
“Frankenstein’s coming, can’t you hear her?”
Then in sixth grade, I had to start wearing glasses. Would my parents let me choose some stylish frames, something pretty? Not a chance—not if it wasn’t on the rack labeled, “Absolute clearance! 75% off!” The optometrist might just have well said, “And, here we have the Pathetic Loser frames” when Mom asked for the least expensive ones. “But, Mom,” I pleaded, “I’ll look like a dork!”
“We’re not spending money on fancy glasses that’ll just break the first time you go out to play.”
“Mom, these are pink plastic and have stars in the corners,” I groaned.
“You’re wearing them to see, not to be seen.” She wouldn’t let me get out of the car each day until I put my glasses on, then she would watch me walk into the school to be sure I didn’t try to ditch them. Those frames were so hideous, they practically screamed to one and all, “Make fun of me! Call me names!”
“Four eyes!”
“Does your face hurt, ’cause it’s killing me!”
“Couldn’t you cover up more of your face? Why stop at the eyes?”
To counteract my newly acquired goofy look, I started competing on the city swim team, thinking that if I got a killer body, nobody would notice my face. Wrong again. I loved being fast and winning ribbons now and then, but now behind my geekoid glasses, I had red, dripping eyes from the chlorine in the pool. I smelled like bleach most of the time, and my hair turned green. I also did not, definitely did not, get a killer body. Why did I think that being an athlete in a swimsuit would turn me into someone who could model for Sports Illustrated? Instead of becoming a knockout, I looked like a linebacker; shoulders for days, no butt at all—in fact, no body fat anywhere. Not even where I wanted it.
“Flatsy-watsy!”
“Excuse me, little boy, . . . oops!”
“She doesn’t wear a training bra, she wears a wishing bra—she wishes she had a chest!”
Eighth grade was supposed to be great. It was the last year of middle school, and there were tons of dances. My one good friend, Janet, showed me how to dance, and I practiced, practiced, practiced. The first dance was a casual after-school thing, and I didn’t worry that I spent the whole afternoon leaning against the wall. Hardly any girls got asked to dance, not even Janet. The Holiday Ball was at night and much fancier, so I saved up baby-sitting money to buy a beautiful red velvet dress. I braided pretty silver ribbons into my hair and scooped all the braids up on the back of my head. I wore mascara for the first time. When I put the dress on that night, I gasped when I looked in the mirror. I twirled around like I was on a fashion runway. I smiled so hard my face hurt. The dress was gorgeous, and I glided into the gym confident that I would dance all night. It only took one fast song with a group of girls for me to sweat out the armpits, and the back from collar to waist. Dancing in a velvet dress in the hot gym had helped me go from awesome to awful in less than three minutes.
I stopped going to dances, certain the Hazardous Materials crew would come and hose me down, either for excessive sweating or polluting the gym with the smell of chlorine.
Spring of eighth grade was going to be my season—I was determined. I knew I’d never be popular. I just wanted to walk across the stage at the Culmination Ceremony and not hear a bunch of giggles and taunts.
My strategy was to do good things for other people, to rack up a lot of points by being unfailingly nice. I became bold and approached the talented basketball player who couldn’t write a paragraph and offered my help on a term paper. I sucked up my courage and asked the Holiday Ball Princess if she wanted me to baby-sit her little sister so she could hang out with her friends. When I saw a group of the truly cool girls at the mall, I suggested that they leave all their bags on a bench with me, while they continued shopping. My new program began to work— people who would never have acknowledged my existence before were suddenly seeking me out.
“Hey, Morri, you’re strong—will you help me rake the leaves at my house after school?”
“Morri, could you give me some of your good ideas for this essay?”
“Morri, you’re good at organizing. Will you come by my house tomorrow and help straighten the garage?”
“Morri, would you be a sweetie and help me address these envelopes?”
The envelopes did it. Up to that point, I’d been feeling pretty good about being seen as the kind of person you could come to, the person who had some skill and talent to offer to others. But when I went to Christine?
??s house for the envelopes, I realized the truth. Going into each envelope was an invitation to Christine’s birthday party; a big deal event at a fancy hotel, complete with dinner, the pool rented out just for her, and everyone was going to be picked up in one of the two limos she’d reserved. There was no envelope for me.
“Christine, do you have my address?”
“No, why?”
“Oh.” I thought I’d figured it out. “Should I just take one home with me? You know, save you a stamp?”
“Um . . . Morri . . . um,” she stammered, “there isn’t an invitation for you. I don’t have any extras.”
My mouth fell open like the Grand Canyon. My eyes were as wide as serving platters. “Morri, it’s my birthday.
I’m really only inviting my closest friends,” Christine explained, licking the twentieth envelope.
I choked a little, blinked a lot, said I understood and walked home. That’s what you call Being Used, Being a Sucker, winning the award for Most Clueless.
From that moment through June, I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. I wanted to escape the hypercritical eyes of middle school and just make it through the summer. High school had to be better, right?
Yes and no. Now that I’m here, I’ve found out that there are still lots of shallow people who like you or not based on what you’re wearing or how cool your hair is. Some kids still think that being popular is the highest goal a person can achieve. But there are also kids who talk to you because they liked your answers in European history or because they thought your art piece was pretty special. Some kids couldn’t care less what you wear, as long as you’re kind, honest and a good friend.
And there are a whole bunch of kids who want to start making changes in the world now, not waiting until they’re all grown up. I volunteer with some of those kids because I like the feeling I get when I am helping people. Jen asked me to join her at a food bank, boxing up groceries for needy families. I went with Hamal when he drove some old people to their doctor’s appointments. And I loved it when about twenty of us started hanging out at Children’s Hospital, playing games and reading to the sick kids.