I've been told I was weird for as long as I can remember. I was so painfully unpopular in grade school it pains me to think of it. I was a total dork. My mom was a model and dressed me a little too fashion forward...and I was too smart for my own good. My father's sense of humor, which seemed totally normal at home, and which is obviously where I got my sense of humor, did not fly in a public school full of young children. In 4th grade, Ben Cashwell started a rumor that I ate toilet paper and it was really all downhill from there. (For the record, I DO NOT eat toilet paper.) Ben Cashwell also took to calling me "dog" which became my nickname for the last few years of grade school before I thankfully entered middle school and got lost in the crowd a bit, although I was still painfully dorky. I remember a teacher telling me my sweater was weird in 6th grade. That is really so not cool. My mom picked it out, and she made me wear it. Fuck you, lady. You weren't exactly a damn fashion plate.
I was painfully unpopular until 7th grade, when I came back to school with boobs, a perm, and eye makeup. Then, the 8th grade boys started noticing me and I was pushed into semi-cooldom. I tried very hard to suppress my odd sense of humor and the fact that I was smarter than all of them. It worked. In 8th grade, Ben Cashwell wanted to make out with me. I said no, due to the fact that he was a short slimy little lying fuck that ruined two years of my life. So he told DR that I was talking smack about her. One last jab before he was left back and I moved on to high school.
In high school, I barely passed 9th grade. I was trying so goddamn hard to be cool, nothing else mattered. It backfired, and I was grounded most of the year for my grades. So my sophomore year, I dropped all my college prep courses. Showing up to class was enough to earn me an A, so I was free to continue to act cool.
My high school was pretty big. There were about 2000 kids there. I never reached the level of coolness that I wanted to, but at least I wasn't a total nerd. I was lost in one of the many subcategories of kids in the school. Still, I needed some outlet for my weirdness, so I made friends with the skinhead/skater/death metal guys. They were all in one big group at that time. I managed to be friends with them while still maintaining my semi-coolness and not looking like them or dating any of them. Still, looking back, I really wish I had their courage to be totally freaky and not give a shit what anyone thought.
After high school, I came to realize quickly that it really is true what your parents say. Those kids who were the coolest in high school are usually the biggest losers after school. No one gives a shit about you, and no one did. My closest and most awesome friends were made after high school, with the exception of a few of those skinhead/skater/death metal guys which I still consider some of my best friends of all time. Now that I am free to let my freak flag fly, now that I am free to be the biggest dork on the planet if I so desire, I am friends with people who appreciate it. Or, in the case of my husband, at least put up with it on a daily basis.
No comments:
Post a Comment