Wednesday 14 January 2009
Wednesday 7 January 2009
The Meat and Potatoes
Here is the link to my first column. Check it out!
http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/Columns/2009/01/06/26584/
http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/Columns/2009/01/06/26584/
Thursday 1 January 2009
Are you more mature than a 5th grader?
My horizontal driver's license says my date of birth is 12/16/1986. This confirms that I am exactly 22 years and 15 days old. This does not confirm, but merely suggests, that I am about to graduate from college and that I was in the fifth grade approximately 10 years ago.
So why are my relationships and friendships so comparable to how they were then?
When I was a fifth grader, I was a little overweight - not obese, by any means, but I had a little trouble getting rid of my baby fat (I actually just accomplished that this year when my face decided to thin out). All of the other kids around me were still scrawny and wiry little boogers with vocabularies extensive enough to cut right to the core of my chubby little soul.
I was obsessed with Clueless and wore cute dresses and knee socks with "clompy" shoes, as I called them. My fifth grade teacher later told me that she thought I dressed better than her. I was very concerned about my appearance and was very conscious about the way I looked which made me kind of a bear because I was unhappy with what I had going on.
Kids called me fat all the time. Fatso, Fatty, Chubs, Lardo and Chubby were just a few names they used. Granted, I was in a girls size 14 pant and I mostly wore Large t-shirts. But it's not like I was wearing a 14 in women's at that age. But, I was bigger than your average 5th grade girl.
I can't even express how insignificant these kids made me feel. I was smart, funny, outgoing and sporty - so why didn't these kids like me? Why were they so mean and nasty to me all the time?
I spent much of my young life searching for answers to these questions. Surely there was something other than my weight that made these kids cut me down as low as they did. But I never found the answer.
I wanted to die. I didn't want to live in the body that I had any longer. I cried at school, I cried at home and on a couple of occasions, I cried in the nurse's office because the kids laughed at me when I cried. I hated most of the people I went to school with and I hated myself for not being able to drop my weight.
I felt so meaningless. I felt like a permanent punchline and no matter what I did to try and fit in with my friends who were still in size 8's and 10's, I couldn't find peace of mind.
Luckily for me, my weight didn't go away, but it did get spread over more ground because I got my growth spurt the next school year. I grew to be one of the taller girls in my grade and I went straight to a size B bra size. I got to start wearing Junior's clothes and was in a size 5 which was fairly decent.
The boys made a beeline for me on the first day of 6th grade. I had never had so many boys flirt with me in my life. But I was sooo over the boys in my class and skipped straight to the 8th graders that had started gathering in my backyard after school. And basically, my entire situation has progressed since then.
Recently, though, I've come to a screaming realization that friendships are really not all they're cracked up to be. They're so delicate and can break right before your eyes or - in my case - behind your back.
So why are my relationships and friendships so comparable to how they were then?
When I was a fifth grader, I was a little overweight - not obese, by any means, but I had a little trouble getting rid of my baby fat (I actually just accomplished that this year when my face decided to thin out). All of the other kids around me were still scrawny and wiry little boogers with vocabularies extensive enough to cut right to the core of my chubby little soul.
I was obsessed with Clueless and wore cute dresses and knee socks with "clompy" shoes, as I called them. My fifth grade teacher later told me that she thought I dressed better than her. I was very concerned about my appearance and was very conscious about the way I looked which made me kind of a bear because I was unhappy with what I had going on.
Kids called me fat all the time. Fatso, Fatty, Chubs, Lardo and Chubby were just a few names they used. Granted, I was in a girls size 14 pant and I mostly wore Large t-shirts. But it's not like I was wearing a 14 in women's at that age. But, I was bigger than your average 5th grade girl.
I can't even express how insignificant these kids made me feel. I was smart, funny, outgoing and sporty - so why didn't these kids like me? Why were they so mean and nasty to me all the time?
I spent much of my young life searching for answers to these questions. Surely there was something other than my weight that made these kids cut me down as low as they did. But I never found the answer.
I wanted to die. I didn't want to live in the body that I had any longer. I cried at school, I cried at home and on a couple of occasions, I cried in the nurse's office because the kids laughed at me when I cried. I hated most of the people I went to school with and I hated myself for not being able to drop my weight.
I felt so meaningless. I felt like a permanent punchline and no matter what I did to try and fit in with my friends who were still in size 8's and 10's, I couldn't find peace of mind.
Luckily for me, my weight didn't go away, but it did get spread over more ground because I got my growth spurt the next school year. I grew to be one of the taller girls in my grade and I went straight to a size B bra size. I got to start wearing Junior's clothes and was in a size 5 which was fairly decent.
The boys made a beeline for me on the first day of 6th grade. I had never had so many boys flirt with me in my life. But I was sooo over the boys in my class and skipped straight to the 8th graders that had started gathering in my backyard after school. And basically, my entire situation has progressed since then.
Recently, though, I've come to a screaming realization that friendships are really not all they're cracked up to be. They're so delicate and can break right before your eyes or - in my case - behind your back.
I have, however, grown to realize that friendships come and go just as most relationships do. I am now a senior in college just a few months away from graduating and making a crazy journey out into the world. I have been through many cycles of friends throughout my life, and I don't expect college to be any different. I hope that I have made enough impact on the lives of the people I've spent these past 4ish years with - enough so that they'll always remember me and how much fun we had.
One day, I will find a companion. A true and real companion who loves me for every piece of person that I am.
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