The years I spent in middle school were terrific and
terrible. I was trying to find my style and express myself—the slightly pudgy,
tall geek posing as a rebel. (Yes, it carried over into high school, too. And
adulthood, minus the rebel part.) And no, I didn’t fool my friends or family.
I took gifted/advanced classes in a four-track-year-round
school in a culturally diverse neighborhood in Southern San Diego County. I was
the tallest girl in the school and blonde amid a sea of dark hair.
(Translation: You could spot me across the campus with ease.) I went to all
periods with the same group of people for two years. The exception was the
elective classes—those in band went to the band room and the others (me
included) cycled between art, cooking, computers, health, drafting, and wood
shop each quarter. It was a solid, well-rounded experience.
My group was the popular clique amid the nerds and
all the cultures at the school were represented. Only the truly weird kids were
the odd ones out. The other three tracks in the school—one would be on break
for a few weeks at any given time—had separate lunch schedules and we didn’t
mix socially. Thus, I was in the privileged top of the (geek) social class.
Switching middle schools in my final month of eighth
grade did a number on my self-esteem. That last month of school (actually
moving on my fourteenth birthday) my family moved to a predominantly
white/upper-class area in North County San Diego and it shook my sense of
self-worth to the core. Less than a thirty minute commute, but it was a radical
culture shock.
I had to ride the bus, which I hadn’t done since
elementary school, and the trips were worse than the actual school day. (I tend
to think this is when my fear of crowds kicked in.) It was packed full of
jeering kids who made fun of those of us who got on/off the bus in my
neighborhood—it was one of the older, original parts in the suburb. Most of the
other kids on the bus route lived in new tract housing with a minimum of three
car garages, five bedrooms and 3.5 baths. People would actually try to trip me
when I walked down the aisle and projectiles were thrown in my direction.
The school days were disastrous. Wood shop, which I
loved at my old school, was torture. Even the teacher looked at me funny and
said “it’s not like it was in your old school” when I walked in the first day.
He offered to let me change my schedule to drop the course, but I naively stuck
it out. There were only two other girls and they were in there because it was
“where the boys are.” I was branded a hoe for taking shop class because in that
school it was for guys and skanks.
I’ve blocked from my memory which class it was that I
had notes stuck on my back taunting “wide load” and such on several occasions.
It was always from the under-sized boys who must have been intimidated to have
a girl sitting in front of them that could physically beat them up—as if I’d
ever. One student did defend me, but the damage was done.
In another class, I was trapped on the back row
between the 90210 looking kids. They’d discuss their parties and drinking/drugs
from the weekend before, where the next one would be held because so-and-so’s
parents were on a cruise, who spent the morning puking in the bathroom, who was
in rehab, or who might be getting an abortion.
There I was, on the “better side” of San Diego, and
I was being exposed to bullying for the first time. Plus the exploits of the
privileged class piled around me—those outwardly perfect kids spiraling down
the dark hole of addiction before reaching high school. It was frightening and
sad, even then. I didn’t envy them. They made me sick just listening to the
stories they joked about. (I think that’s where my distrust for seemingly
perfect people stems from. Even in books, I never trust the pretty boys. No
Team Edward here.)
Then, there’s the fact that on the first day I dressed
out for P.E. I was picked last when choosing baseball teams. (The first, but
not the final, time I was left for a coach to assign me to a team.) I busted
myself to prove I wasn’t all that bad. I barely made it to first base and later
sprained my ankle running home. I had to hobble around for a couple weeks on
crutches.
I sat the whole boring 8th grade
graduation (the only time I walked for a grad ceremony) surrounded by
strangers. The next day, I attended my old school’s graduation and watched my
close friends get their diplomas as a bystander, sitting with their parents and
siblings rather than with them on the stand.
It sucked to be me.
Over the summer, and then when high school began, I
did settle into a small friendship circle of other outsiders and new comers. I
was no longer bullied—but mostly ignored, which was fine by me.
Three months into my freshman year—just six months
after the last move—I was once again relocated. This time the destination was eight
hours north, to a strange place near Santa Cruz.
But that’s another story.
