Thinking about these awkward, embarrassing, torturous days made me have a slight gag reflex and throw up a little in my mouth.
I started re-living the nightmare called 8th grade. How life just plain sucked. How EVERYTHING was hard and how everyday at school was a huge event and making it out alive at the end of the day was a miracle! How I had no idea who I was or who I wanted to be. I constantly worried about who my real friends were or who I wanted to impress or who I wanted to get to notice me or if my maxi pad was gonna leak through my pants. I wasn't "smart" or "athletic" or "popular" or "funny" or "beautiful". I was just me, whoever the hell that was.
Here are a list of things that I
1. When my jeans would not "tight roll" correctly and would un-roll everytime I walked down the hall.
2. When my socks would creep down into my shoe
3. When I had "lumps" in my hair if I was wearing a ponytail
4. Report card day
5. Breaded Veal, creamed rice, or taco day in the cafeteria
6. Having to eat lunch in lunch detention with all the hoodlums
7. Getting demerits for talking or forgetting something
8. Having to open up my locker....with a combination
9. P.E. and everything about it
10. Changing clothes in P.E. when I was on my period.
11. Trying to decide where to sit at lunch....everyday
12. When I would be chewing on a pen, and all of a sudden the pen would do (1) of (2) things.... 1.) slip and stab me in the gum or 2.) explode in my mouth
13. When anyone would look at me and then laugh
14. When my bangs would get too long
15. When I would get my bangs trimmed and I would look like this.....
16. When I would get white flakes in my hair due to too much hairspray
17. When my mouth would bleed from the vast amount of wire inside
18. When the boys would call me "Oklahoma" cause it was (apparently) the flattest state in the U.S. (hilarious)
19. When I would fail a test and have to get it signed
20. When my sister would get straight A's.......and I didn't. Ever. Or even come close.
21. When I had math class
22. When I had to ride the school bus
23. When my contacts would give me fits
24. When I had to write spelling sentences
25. When I would pass my "boyfriend" in the hall and be so nervous I would stop breathing
26. When I would fall asleep on the school bus and wake up when my stop came and felt like 3 days had passed
27. When bread would get stuck in my braces
28. When every boy in my class wanted to "go out" with me....EXCEPT the one boy that I liked.
29. Yearbook signing day and picture trading day
30. When I would stare and daydream at my 8th grade science teacher and then remember he was married with children and would never be my boyfriend.
31. When someone would stack my locker and all my books and personal belongings would spill out into the hallway.
Thinking about all this drama and moments that made my life "miserable" while in Jr High allowed me to look at my students a little differently today. I started to sympathize with them, and give them the benefit of the doubt, and feel sorry for them, and smile more at them, and try not to stress them out as much.
While "Away in a Manger" played silently in the background and the TRUE meaning of Christmas overcame me, I looked at my students and felt a new kind of love for them. I was proud of them for making it through everyday and proud of them for just keeping their heads above water...cause that was all I was trying to do when I was their age.
I understood them more and looked at them as if to say, "I get it. I've been there".
Until....
someone SCREAMED my name (scaring the dickens out of me) and informed me that there was a "PIECE OF SOMEONE'S WEAVE LAYING ON THE FLOOR" and "I THINK I TOUCHED IT!!! OHMYGAWD!!! CAN I GO SANITIZE?!!"
Then, my moment was over.
I snapped back into reality and asked myself, how many more hours til Christmas break?!?!
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