Raise your hand if you agree that junior high was a blah time in your life. Let's face it, you are coming out of elementary school and having to get used to the fact that you have more than one teacher which the mere thought of made you want to crap your pants the first day you had to try and find all your classes! Junior high or as they call it now middle school (lame) was rough for most of us. It is a time we are trying to find ourselves all while trying to stay out of trouble and be liked by your peers. I was one of those kids who was pretty well known (could have been my name) but not popular. I thought I was pretty cool and I think my friends did too but then again we were like a nerdy group of kids. Of course everyone talked to everybody back then but of course there were the kids who we wanted to be like. I will not name names here but I strived to be like many who are my facebook friends today. I begged my mom to buy me lace gloves and jellies and those plastic purses with the holes in them so I could fit in but I never go the whole outfit right!
Of course it didn't matter to my friends because to us we were cool and we were friendly and got along with anybody...mostly. Of course every teenage girl has their own encounter and stories of a real life mean girl or in my case a group of them. Honestly it wasn't like I was really bullied or anything like that but they had things they would say that just made you feel so low. These were the girls that knew how to wear makeup, had all the right clothes, their hair was perfect and the guys that you thought were cute were totally into them and girls like me were non-existent.
By the time you get to high school there are bigger groups of people and more mean girls from different junior highs to deal with all in one school. I was happy just being me and hanging out with my friends and doing what made me happy but of course the mean girls or the I am better than you girls were always there. By the time graduation comes around you are so happy to get out of school and you never have to deal with those kinds of girls again. I am sure that guys also have their share of feeling the same way like the jocks thinking they are better or whatever the case may be.
Then came facebook... I got so excited when Facebook came around and all my old friends were in one place. It was like a reunion that you didn't have to get all dressed up for. Then suddenly, you get friend requests from people who were THOSE people in high school and you accept them because you want to see how great or awful their life turned out to be. Sometimes it works out to your advantage when they were skinny in high school and the last 20 years it seemed like all they did was eat! Of course there are the beautiful ones still who have a wonderful life and their darling little kids pictures dressed as Disney princesses are posted everywhere.
I was guilty of this Facebook routine but then one day I thought that I didn't care about their wonderful life-why should I-they were mean back in the day. I know, I know there will be some of you out there who say it's all about forgiveness and all and trust me I am not a bad person and don't sit here with a voo-doo doll for every mean person I have ever encountered. I guess one day I realized that I never had anything in common with these people when I was younger and I was ok with that. I went through my friends list and "unfriended" a lot of people who it didn't matter one way or another if they were my friends or not. I must say that since I did that I am happy to see my facebook and learn about what all my friends are up to-the friends who were ok with how I looked when I was in junior high. Who didn't care that my mom bought my shoes from Payless and my clothes from K-Mart (Yikes!).
But it never fails...one day you will come face to face with one of those people who made life hell for you or who made you feel like the dirt on the bottom of your kmart ballerina shoes back in the day. A while back Miji and I were at a softball game and there was a guy there who looked like a douchebag and he said hello to Miji and Miji said hello then turned around and told me how much he hated him. The guy used to somewhat bully him back in the day and now here he was saying hello-ugh! I had that happen twice at a family function at my sisters house. It's like my sister is this magnetic energy that people are drawn to. She's smart, funny and just so happens to know people who know people I went to school with. I remember the first time it happened and she said- "Oh I met this person you went to school with and she remembers you." I swear I wanted to vomit in my mouth. Ugh!!! She showed up to a party my sister had and my sister re-introduced us and it was like I didn't belong there. She still had that effect on me after all these years. I said hello and went outside, visited with other party people and drank as she was like a princess trying to be the life of the party.
I found myself finding her on Facebook and checking out all her glamorous pictures of herself-Ugh! Since then though, I haven't ran into her again, though I am sure my sister may still talk to her or their circle of friends from time to time. This weekend it happened again-another mean girl at my sister's party. Mean girl's in-laws are friends with my sister and we had fun the whole afternoon enjoying the hot day as we dangled our feet in the jacuzzi enjoying glasses of wine. They told me she may drop by later and when she did it was like it was time to go home. She smiled and told me hello but the mean girl energy was in the air. I was somewhat happy that she was not that skinny girl she was in school and I was happy that I was littler than her (I know that sounds evil). We went to one side of the party and she was at the other. She made it a point to be sweet to everyone that was there-except me. The funny thing is that I didn't care about trying to be in her circle of friends like I would have back in the day. I was happy with how things turned out in my life-and I was still wearing my cute payless shoes too (of course different ones)!
Yesterday I found my junior high yearbook and I looked her up. I rolled my eyes at her picture, laughed at all the pictures of jocks I thought were cute with hearts I drew by their names and put it back in the closet.
The more life changes, the more it stays the same-payless shoes and all and you know what... I am happy with how my life has turned out. Sometimes it pays to be a nice girl.
I was nice to everyone in back-in-the-day. My clothes came from thrift stores, mostly. I got the fashionable shoes a year later when they were "out of style." And had dealt with my share of mean people. I didn't realize it then, but when I look back now, I was part of the "weird" group; the outcasts. Today, I am friends with so many from the past on facebook. I have also made so many new friends all over the world. I don't think I would change a thing from the past because it has made me who I am today. =))
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