Saturday, 11 July 2009

• Self Evaluation

  Yesterday I got a friend suggestion on Facebook.  The suggestion came from a grade school friend, Jason, who found me online a while back.  Since then he's found even more people from our school days, including two friends, Shannon and Kathi, that lived in my neighborhood.  Back in those days society was not quite so mobile, and most of us went to school together up through 11th grade when they opened the new high school and gave us the choice of staying at our original school (Carry On, Mesa High!) or staying in district and attending the new one (Boo Red Mountain.)

  Anyway, Jason sent me this suggestion and she has a very unusual name so I recognized it right away and sent her a friend request.  Today I got an email back from her, asking who I was, as she didn't remember me.  Here's the reply I sent her:

  Well, I've only known one <insert name here> in my life and we went to grade school together at Jefferson Elementary.  We were in kindergarden together I think.  Can't remember the teacher's name, but she got married part way through the year.  And then we were probably in 1st grade together too, in Mrs. Fuller's class.  Jason J. sent the suggestion, so I figured you were that person.  And I also figure I totally owe you an apology for pulling your hair on the playground.  :)

  I really do owe her that apology.  I was so mean to her back then.  It was probably 2nd grade when I actually got a time-out at recess for mercilessly teasing her and pulling her hair.  I remember Mrs. Fuller (my 1st grade teacher,) walking by and seeing me sitting by the wall and saying incredulously "Lesley??  Why are YOU sitting out at recess?"  I told her I had been pulling the girl's hair.

  Mrs. Fuller was dumbfounded.  I was the perfect child, perfect student, never in trouble.  "WHY???" she asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders.  "I don't know."

  I have actually thought about that incident over and over again throughout my life, and it's only now in the last few years that I've come to understand it.

  I was mean to her because I felt bad about myself.

  I was the ugly girl with fly-away hair and grades that were far too good.  I didn't believe in Santa and I didn't dance when the class did and I was required to wear dresses at least two days every week.  (Sorry, Mom & Dad.  I don't hold it against you; I'm just reporting the way it was.)

  This girl, on the other hand, was required to wear dresses EVERY day.  And she had good grades too.  And I don't remember about the dancing, but she also didn't believe in Santa Clause.  And to top it all off, she had long hair which she sometimes wore down and straight and sometimes in braids and either way it made me so insanely jealous.  And so instead of finding her a kindred spirit, I did what people do when they don't like themselves:  they find someone else to take it out on.

  I can see that so clearly now.  It wasn't that I hated her.  I hated myself.

  I've grown up a lot since then.  I've learned to love who I am, even those parts of me that aren't so well liked by others.  I still have terrible hair, but thankfully "tousled" is an in-look these days.  I no longer care if people don't like what I believe in and I have no qualms on saying so.  I still don't dance, but it's because I have no ability, rather than no opportunity.  And now I choose to wear skirts almost every day.  Lol.  Funny how things change and still stay the same, isn't it?

  And unfortunately, even as an adult, I've met people that are still stuck in second grade, still picking on the person that is too much like them for them to accept.  And until they recognize their own self-loathing, until they come to terms with who they are and either accept it or change it, until that time, they'll never be able to find friendship in the very people that are so much like themselves.

  Time to grow up, my friend.  Life is too short to hate yourself.

   

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