As many of you know I am a fan of Facebook. What started out as a simple request from my friend Becky has now turned into a bit of an obsession for me. I have reconnected with many old friends and it is a great way to stay in touch with my current friends. We exchange pictures, recipes, and our daily trials. In the past I would look to people.com or some other celebrity website to feed the my guilty pleasures, I now go to Facebook.
So today as I was browsing through the news feeds, ( it sounds very pertinent but it's just updates about what has been happening in the world of FB.) While looking at all the details of my FB friends lives, I came across a picture taken during my senior year. It was of the entire senior class. Many people were commenting on it, saying how funny we looked, the big sweaters, the big hair, etc. I took a look at myself and really thought nothing of it. A little bit later I looked again and was surprised at what I saw.
The ugly girl who had such a hard time in school, looked kinda pretty now. That ugly girl was me and when I was in school I had many many kids come right up to me and tell me how ugly I was. Just what I needed to hear, right? Thanks for the info guys! Well, I will never forget their names, or how these kids made me feel. My school life was not a happy one and the things that were said to me , the things that were thrown at me and the way even the teachers made me feel has stuck with me to this day.
But it all ends here. In this blog, on this day, forever. Because I realized something, that girl, was pretty, she was sweet, she was smart and she deserved better. Don't think I have been feeling down about myself all these years, I haven't I have a great self image! But at that moment I realized something, all those kids, the ones who rejected me, laughed at me, and made my life miserable to advance their own egos were just a bunch of LOSERS!! I know this sounds harsh, some may say they were just kids, but at what point do kids become accountable? High school kids know better and most choose to ignore common sense. Be kind to others, everyone is an equal, be patient, accept those who are not like you, are not the types of things I saw a lot of in school.
But most of all, those kids lost out, they never got to know the girl who was an awesome tennis player and could hit a backhand winner down the line almost every time. If they had asked I would have taught them how to do it! They lost out on a friend who would have been true to the end. They also lost out on knowing the woman that girl grew up to be.
I was just as pretty as any of them, so for whatever reason they chose to single me out will forever be a mystery, but it has made me who I am today so I won't complain. We all have different roads we need to take in our lives and my early years with my peers were awful. But I have more then made up for it. I did go through a period in my life where I thought I had to be perfect and mean just like those kids to survive. I soon realized that it only burns holes in your heart and does no good, because you are only hurting yourself. You miss out on knowing some great people when you judge by looks first and character second.
If any of my high school classmates ever read this I want to introduce myself, my name is Karen, I'm pretty and kind. I am also a good writer, a great mom, and an even better friend. I think I am funny and I love to make others laugh. I am not much different today, except I am not as shy and have not fear in telling anyone what I think.
Today I have many friends, friends who never knew me back then, and really don't care about what I was like at 17. They also don't care one bit about what I look like or that I have bad hair days an awful lot! If only the kids of Colonie High Class of 89 had tried to see this, but maybe this is the way it was always intended to be.
The only way I know how to end this is with this quote from my friend Kathy, "my past does not define me, my Jesus defines me." And that quote sums up the woman I have grown up to be! be!
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2 comments:
This really hit home for me...I was another "picked on kid," though not to the extent that you write about. My feeling? That we were picked on because we were closer to perfection than they were....and we didn't have to do all that much to achieve it. We had parents who loved us and each other (they had divorced and broken homes), we had decent, clean looks (they needed cans and cans of hairspray and a cement trowel for makeup application to achieve the same look....however it didn't turn out the way they planned!). We had nice clothes that fit us appropriately (they needed to melt themselves into their jeans to prove they were still a size 4).
I think a lot of our self-esteem comes from God....we were happy with who we were (and still are) because He held (and still holds!) us in the palm of His gracious hand! Many of those who picked on us in school may not have had that, and wanted what we had, therefore lashed out at us in a jealous rage.
(OK, I'm not usually the one to preach, so I'm going to step down off the soap box now! Phew!)
I won't go into everything here on this forum, but when we first met in senior Year, it was Sociology, we kind of clicked. You did teach me to play tennis, even if I was wearing a cast. And I did not spread lies about you! I won. Anyway, to all who are reading, Karen is right. You should get to know her. I got to know her between 1990-92. It changed my life.
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