8th Grade Dance

When I was in junior high, I was overweight and spent most of the school dances alone, in the corner. 

The last dance of 8th grade, the school hired a DJ who would dedicate songs to couples, and they would go to the floor and slow dance together. Imagine my surprise when the DJ announced the next slow song dedicated to me, by one of the most popular boys in school! We danced together, and I felt so special. 

After the dance was over, I returned to my dark corner where I overheard the DJ talking about a group of pranksters who were dedicating slow songs to all the fat/ugly/unpopular girls, so the popular boys had to dance with them. 

I have never been so humiliated.

15 years latter I have thankfully left behind my ugly duckling phase. That particular popular boy is now bald and short. But still, I don't think my self-esteem will ever recover from such mortification.
 

Black and White

I had a huge crush on a guy in 8th grade, and was devastated when he started going out with this girl I hated. 

I came home crying about it, and my mom just said, "Did you really think he would have picked you over her?" 

She said this because he was white, I was black, and the other girl was white. It was like I never had a chance because of that.

To this day, I still have doubts about myself when I find a white guy attractive.
 

"I wouldn't change a thing."

It was Indian Summer on the coast five years ago. I was in my boyfriend's room, sprawled on his bed, twisting his hair. He was pouring his heart out to me, telling me why he loved me so much. 

I have genetic health problems that leave me in pain and incapable of doing all the things we once did together. Our weekend hikes and our sunny days spent combing the beach for hours, searching for the best shells and rocks had diminished. Our time together was spent indoors, doing low impact activities, like watching movie after movie or drawing together. It affected my self-esteem and sense of worth, but also made me feel insecure about where our relationship would go if I couldn't do the fun things we loved to do anymore. 

I was watching the dust motes swirl in the sunlight coming through the window, listening with a heavy heart to his proclamations of love.

I said there were things I wished I could change, and told him my degenerative health was something I think both of us would change if we could. He turned and looked me dead in the eye, and said something I'll never forget. 

"The struggles you've experienced with your health might not be the funnest or anything, but they've made you the amazing person you are today."

I thought about how there's no telling who I'd be without these problems. 

He lifted my chin so I'd stare him in the eyes.

"Nothing. I wouldn't change a thing."
 

The Girl I Became

After almost five years of dating this great guy, we went on a weeklong dream vacation together. Everything was going great, and I was kind of waiting for him to pop the question. 

Then the last day came, and we had been drinking.

In his drunk state, he told me, "I was going to ask you to marry me, but then I changed my mind."

I was heartbroken. 

Eight months later, we broke up. He told me that I just wasn't the same after we came back from vacation, and that he didn't love the girl I became. 

I don't think he ever understood that his heartbreaking words were what made me the girl I became. 
 

Then, one day.

One day, when I was in the first grade, I was playing on the playground at school. I was never very outgoing and I didn't have a lot of friends. A second grade boy came over to me. He looked at me and said, "You aren't pretty." 

As a child, my first instinct was to say, "Yes I am! My momma told me I am!" 

With that, he quickly lashed out with, "Well, she lied." 

As I grew older, his words stuck with me. They took a bigger toll on my self confidence than I would like to admit. Something so seemingly small that happened to me as a child in the first grade impacted me for the next ten years. 

Then, one day when I was a camp counselor, I met a boy who told me he loved me. I thought I was sitting among the stars. No one outside of my family had ever told me they loved me before. For the first time since first grade, I felt like I was pretty enough. Like I was wanted.

Time went on and so did the relationship. Then one day, he spoke four words that cut me deep. "I don't love you."

I felt unwanted, unlovable. I was depressed for the longest time. 

Eventually I figured out how to enjoy just being me. I loved being myself again.

Then, one day, I met an amazing man with a great personality, and equally great looks. I was a second semester freshman in college. I quickly learned about him: his past, his family, his likes and dislikes, his dreams. He made me feel loved, wanted, and important. I loved him more than I ever thought I could love someone. And for the first time in a while, I knew I was good enough. Life seemed to fall into place. We talked about marriage, children, and growing old together. 

Then, one day as we were Skyping, he dropped his head in silence. Then he uttered the words I thought he would never say. "I don't think we're going to work. I don't love you". 

I was more than devastated. I was so heartbroken, I couldn't even cry. It was almost like my heart broke into two pieces, and then a million more. I could feel my heart shatter like glass in my chest. 

Days went by and I tried to hide the pain, but the nights were long. Often times I cried myself to sleep, other times I fell asleep from the pure exhaustion of crying so hard the night before. 

Weeks went by and I still missed him, but the tears stopped. Slowly but surely, I started to be me again. 

With the help of my best friend, I realized I was depending too much on others making me happy, that I had forgotten how to make myself happy. 

Now I am happily single. I enjoy every day. I'm going to take life by the horns. I'm going to keep knowing that I am pretty, I am wanted, and I am loved. 

Then, one day, I'll get make someone else feel the same way.

"Boys can't be sexually assaulted by girls."

When I was in high school I struggled with my sexuality. I never dated, never 'experimented.' My freshman year a female friend of mine asked me out, but I declined because I didn't have feelings like that for her. She said okay, and we continued to be friends.

Before the end of the year she sexually assaulted me, at the school, when nobody was around. When I tried to tell people, they dismissed me and said that I was lying because she wasn't attractive and I was ashamed. And many people said, "Boys can't be sexually assaulted by girls."

Years later I moved across the country and began to move past the trauma of being assaulted. A girl who was acquainted with my roommate came to our apartment and told me that she thought I was attractive. I removed myself from the situation and went to bed, the reminder of what happened last time made me sick. 

Then she forced herself into my bed and I was sexually assaulted again. She said I couldn't tell anyone because they wouldn't believe me anyway.

That will never leave me. 

And even now that I am in a happy, loving relationship I still get a spike of fear when someone reveals that they find me attractive.
 

"You are by far the most loving person I know. You're also the most gullible."

When I was 18, I was in a very physically and emotionally abusive relationship. He moved into my apartment, took over my life, got me pregnant, then left.

I moved back home with my parents and went back to school. I got an awesome job, and my son and I moved out on our own. We were doing fairly well. 

Then when I was 22, I got pregnant again. My boyfriend said, "Get an abortion and I'll stay. Keep it and I'm gone." 

I was crushed. I didn't get an abortion with my first child back when my life was a wreck, so why would I do it now? So he moved literally across the country. And I was, yet again, left pregnant and alone.

After I had my second son, the boys and I met with my best friend for lunch. I was having a rather emotional day and I started to cry. I said to him, "When I love, I love with every ounce of my being, so why do I only find these guys who play me like a puppet?"

He reached across the table, patted my eyes, grabbed my hand, smiled at my four-year-old, looked at my newborn, and said in a soft, sweet voice, "Sweetheart, for as long as I've known you, you are by far the most loving person I know. You're also the most gullible. Anyone can tell you they love you, and you will believe it every single time."

Since that day, I haven't been able to believe anyone who says they love me. Not even him. 

Now he says I need to loosen up and try dating again. No thanks! I've learned my lesson, and the boys and I couldn't be happier on our own.
 

Witch Nose

"Your nose makes you look like a witch, but I'd still date you."

This comment launched the start of what is still to this day my biggest insecurity.

"I didn't want to die alone."

When my ex got out of a long relationship and started dating me, he found himself in a hard place. At the time, he truly believed he was dying of an STD. He told me he wanted to marry me, have a family, the whole nine. 

When I actually wound up unintentionally pregnant, he broke up with me. 

Many months later I asked him why he would say he wanted to marry me, have a family and a home if he didn't actually mean it. 

He responded with, "I thought I was dying, and I didn't want to die alone." 

After all this time, I've healed. I have a beautiful child that I adore with everything in me, and I am thankful every day for my small babe. 

However, that one line has stuck with me. It is the only thing I haven't let go of because it is such a cruel and powerful sentence.
 

"Is she pregnant?"

One day I was at my boyfriend's house watching TV with his family. I glanced over at him and saw that he said, "No," to his uncle. I asked what his uncle had asked him, and my boyfriend responded, "Nothing, babe."

I persisted, and eventually he told me. 

"He asked if you were pregnant."

I felt my heart drop. 

I got up and walked out of the room and cried.

I lost 25 pounds within the next month. I worked out twice a day and hardly ate. 

My boyfriend is very supportive and always has been. He's never made me feel fat or ugly, but whenever I look in the mirror or eat, I hear those words over and over in my head.