|
|
On a more personal level...
When I was in sixth grade, I went back home to the States. I had so been looking forward to this; I'd be able to get back to my old friends, be able to have fun like I remembered as a child.It didn't work out like that.
I was a stranger at the school where I'd spent my first seven years. Oh, people remembered me, and I remembered people, but they were no longer my friends. We had all grown up; there were the people who had been there forever, and the newcomers, and me who had been there early then left, then come back. And I really wanted to fit in.
I cringe when I think of my Middle School years. To say that I was naive would be an understatement; to say I was desperate to fit in was also. I would have done anything to be someone's friend, and did everything they said I had to do to be their friend. I was absolutely pathetic then; I wore my heart on my sleeve, giving it to everybody who even looked at me, but only to have it tossed on the ground in pieces for me to collect and try to put back together. People got nigh unto sick of me clinging; I was the child that everybody picked on. Then came the bathroom scene:
Sarah P. plays with herself.
I was so innocent I didn't know what that meant. I knew it was bad when people gave me horrified looks and promised that they hadn't done it, but I didn't know what it meant. I was innocent and sweet back then; why would someone have done that to me? What had I done? Absolutely nothing, which was why they did it.
Even after that, I still tried to be friends. I don't carry grudges, at least not consciously; I still remember the names of the people I suspected did that to me: Georgia Humphrey, Amy Miller, and Danielle. And that stigma stayed with me all through Middle School and into High School; a girl named Samantha (loser that she was, she had to pick on me who was supposedly an even bigger loser; at least I'm not doing drugs, a dropout, and a slut now) never let me forget it and broadcast it to the world. Children can learn to forget things like that, and perhaps most of them did; but I didn't, and that whole time scarred me forever.