At The Podium In A. Smile Overalls

18th February, 2023

Like a lot of other kids, I despised junior high. Those were clumsy, confusing, and lonely years. I want to preface what follows here with an understanding that some people have/had it worse than I did. I am not seeking pity. I want to speak my story in a way that helps me expel the ineffective, obsessive thoughts I live with, once and for all. I have spent decades trying to understand myself. I have wasted too many hours trying to somehow change what was. For many, many years, I felt that if others didn’t know my story, they would never allow their memories of me to include who I am now.

Historically, others’ opinions of me have been more important to me than my own. This has been my inner dialogue most of my life. I never saw an opportunity, a possibility of anything else until my early 30s. As a therapist once said to me years ago, “You wear an invisible neon sign. It’s over your head. Everyone but you can see it. It says, ‘Blame Me.’ “

The stories, the beliefs I am perpetuating about myself have to stop. It’s crazy. It’s an insanity that I have allowed for far too long. The narrative that I have carried has been false. I am rewriting that narrative because it no longer serves me. This is a terrifying process, but it’s a necessary journey. I resist it a number of times every day. I’ve clung to the trauma because it’s what I know. Without it, who am I? What will be left standing after all the cuts and edits? Maybe if I remove all of my trauma, there will be nothing left of me. What if all I have ever been is the trauma? Maybe I don’t exist cohesively without it.

I was not looking for this photo when I found it, nor was I expecting the flood of memories that accompany it. I was not looking to revisit these awkward days during which my deep-seated self-hatred was beginning to take root. But here I am, at 54, crying my eyes out for the child in this photo. She was terrified to be at that podium, but she dared anyway. This is a child of 13 or 14. This is a child that felt deeply out of place everywhere she went.

I have held a lot of contempt for this child. I have held her accountable for many things over the years. I have regurgitated, in my brain, time and time again, all of the things that she did wrong. I have admonished her for the poor choices, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for not trying harder to do better. I have scowled at the memory of her drunk at school, at 14. I have fanned the hot flames of shame from my face just thinking of her. I want to crawl under a rock when I remember drunk dialing popular boys at this age. “Am I ugly? Why does everyone hate me? What am I doing wrong?”

She tried so hard, this young lady. She tried to please the people at home, to no avail. She tried to fit in with “The Right People” at school, but she wasn’t welcome in their groups. She was weird, insecure, lonely, and angry. But she was also smart, sensitive, creative, and strangely fearless.

She had potential. She also had undiagnosed ADD, anxiety and depression, and a drinking issue by 14. FOURTEEN! I brought Tupperware containers of booze to school and kept them in my locker. No one said anything. Nothing kind, or helpful, at least. Kids knew. They just talked about what a loser I was becoming. There were adults, TEACHERS, who knew and did nothing. They just kept the poor work slips coming.

I was told I had potential. More often, however, I was told I was a bad kid. No one wanted to help me figure out what they meant by that. I had potential, but I wasn’t worth the time. I had potential, but I was someone else’s problem. I tried so many different ways of being seen. I was good, until I ran out of ways of trying to be good. I could have been perfect, and it would not have been enough. I grew tired. Then, I started believing the ones who said I was bad.

In this photo, I was still trying to be good. I am running for either ASB Historian, or Treasurer. I cannot remember. I tried running for ASB offices twice, then gave up. I was too. . . I don’t know. No one ever told me what I was doing wrong, just that everything about me was wrong. I tried to stay out of trouble. I tried to do the right thing. Always.

Until I gave up.

When my dad was not around to tell me how worthless and shitty I was, I had help at school. Where my dad left off, Jackie took over. She had no idea, I am sure, just how helpful she was at helping break my spirit. “Do better!” the adults said. “We won’t let you, you freak,” said the kids.

I was smart enough. I was creative enough. I COULD have pushed though the bullying at school if I had had the support at home. Instead, I gave up. I gave up and discovered alcohol and weed. They seemed to quiet the voices that constantly ran in my head. The alcohol gave me permission to ASK “What is wrong with me?” But I was asking other awkward kids that were no better suited to deal with my issues than I was. And many of the adults seemed to feel the same way about me as my dad did, that I was “never going to amount to anything,” so I leaned into becoming nothing.

I started smoking. I drank more. I tried other drugs as the years went on. Suicidal ideation first appeared at around 15, shortly after I was raped. Raped at 15. Drugged and raped by my boyfriend’s best friend. When I called to tell my boyfriend this happened, he called me a slut, then hung up. It was official: By 15, I was a slutty loser freak who was never going to amount to anything. Thank god for my grandparents. Thank god for the boys who were actually friends, friends that did not pour booze down my throat and then get on top of me.

I was not ready for ANY of it. ANY of it. I just wanted to feel okay in those pink A. Smile overalls. I just wanted a turn at being okay. I only wanted a chance to show how good I could have been at being good. I just wanted my carefully, well-written speech to be heard. I wanted a CHANCE.

All the child in this photo wanted was a chance. She would have to go through a few decades of hell to find herself. She is still learning that she deserves a chance. She still wants to put on those A. Smiles, and her Mary Janes, carry her flute to Band, and become ASB Historian. She would still like to kick Jackie’s ass, but she has also learned that perhaps Jackie wasn’t treated so well at home herself.

I don’t forgive Jackie yet, and perhaps I never will. But I DO forgive this little girl in this photo. I forgive you, Kelly. (Please don’t call me Kelly: It’s not my name anymore.) I forgive you. I see you now, and I saw you then. I am sorry I did not know how to help you better. I am sorry I let you make some of those choices.

You made some really, really poor choices, young one, but I forgive you. You were a CHILD. I forgive you. You were NOT the things “They” said you were. I am sorry I ever let you believe those things were true. They weren’t true then, and they are not true now. They were never true.

Lay it down, Kelly. Rest your weary, feathered-hair head. You are forgiven. You were a child. You survived, and your heart is intact. Don’t listen to the voices that minimize this part of your healing. Don’t listen to the ones that tell you you need to be quiet and get over it. Listen to yourself for once. In this moment, ask yourself, “What do I need right now?”

“Easy. I need to be seen and heard for the right reasons.”

Little Girls shall be seen and heard.