Gay Lunchbox Brigade

The week before 7th grade, my family and I went back to school shopping. I found this awesome lunchbox with monarch butterflies on the front, and I was so excited to bring it to school. 

Flash forward to the first day of school, lunch period.

As walked to the cafeteria, the most popular girl in school walked by, and sneered at me, saying, "What are you, in the gay lunchbox brigade?"

I went home and begged my mom to get me a plain, black, boring lunchbox. When she said no, I carried my butterfly lunchbox for rest of the school year.

"If she were smaller, then sure."

As a kid I was always taller and more shapely than everyone else my age.  In 7th grade when all of my little petite friends were getting "boyfriends," one of my friends asked my crush if he liked me. 

His response was, "Oh, she's pretty, but she's just way too big for me to be with. If she were smaller, then sure." 

I have never forgotten that. And now, ten years later, I still have anxiety every time I look into the mirror.

Smart

When I was in school, teachers didn't know about dyslexia, ADHD, or PTSD. They didn't understand my stutter, so I stopped talking, and just did the best I could to keep up and not get noticed by my teachers anymore. 

They did notice. All through my youth I was told I was "stupid," "deliberately acting dumb," and "failing tests on purpose." I was told I would never graduate. I got lumped in with the bad crowd, and wore my "dumbness" with pride. Until I met my 8th grade math teacher. 

Math was always my worst subject. Dyslexia turns timed multiplication tests into an instant panic attack. My former math teachers told me that they let me pass their classes just so they wouldn't have to deal with me again.
 
But this one teacher. He kept me after class and helped me with homework. He walked me through tests so I would slow down enough to finish them. And then one day, out of the blue, he told me I was smart, and that my brain just worked too fast for anyone else to keep up.

In all of my 15 years, nobody had ever called me smart. 

With that one little comment, I started passing classes. I ended up graduating not only high school, but college, too. My stutter slowed, and now, years later, I still truly believe that I'm smart.  

That one math teacher that took time out of his overworked days to tell the dumb kid she was smart. That's what stuck with me.
 

"That looks like a cartoon."

As a kid I always loved painting, and when I got to middle school, I finally had a chance to take a real art class.

We were working on landscapes, and I decided to paint a mountain range based on a real photo. I was really proud of my work so far, and I was so happy to have a whole class period in school dedicated to this beloved hobby. 

The teacher came up to me and looked at my painting in disgust. She said, "That sky is ridiculous! Skies are not that deep blue in real life. They're light grey. Almost white. That looks like a cartoon."

I tried to tell her that I was going directly off the blue of the sky in the photo, but she insisted I change it.

To this day, twenty years later, whenever I see a deep, rich blue sky in real life, I still think of her. 

"What IS it?"

As a kid, I had short hair, played sports, and was routinely mistaken for a boy. We moved when I was 10, and I started a new school. I kept wearing androgynous clothes and flattening sports bras. I was self-conscious not only of being the new kid with no friends, but of being one of the only kids wearing a bra. I had short, short hair and "boy clothes," but breasts. 

It wasn't until high school that I started dressing girlier and growing my hair out. In homeroom one day, a male classmate gave me an unsolicited compliment on my new look. 

He went on to describe how my appearance used to freak him out because he couldn't tell what I was. The clincher, though, that stuck with me? "I remember when you moved here...I was like, 'Is it a guy or a chick? What IS it?'"

I replied with a sarcastic joke, but in reality, most sentient beings probably wouldn't like being labelled as "it."

"I really don't have any interest in being a mom anymore."

My parents both came from pretty rough backgrounds and were raised by Depression Era parents. They were both the oldest of large families, so they had a lot of responsibilities. 

When I was 11, my mom said to me, "I raised my own siblings, and then your brother. I really don't have any interest in being a mom anymore." 

My parents still don't understand why I stopped telling them about awards nights and other school events, or why I dropped out of doing things. It was because I didn't think anyone cared. 

"Look, she's so fat!"

When I was in 7th grade, nobody knew me yet in my new classes. There was this guy who was known for being a douche, yet I still had a crush on him.

One day he and a friend were walking behind me, and I heard him say, "Look, she's so fat!"

A few months later, we were practically best friends in class. He called another girl fat, but I thought he was talking about me. When I asked, he said, "No! Why would I call you fat?" To which I responded, "You actually have before. Ages ago. You said it while you were walking behind me." 

He then spent the next seven minutes completely denying that he ever said this, that he didn't even know who I was at the time.  

That was the first time I that realized how easy it is for people to make comments that may be insignificant to them but everything to you. So insignificant that they don't even remember making them. So insignificant to him, but so scarring and formative for me. 
 

"You always look like that."

I had serious acne when I was younger. One time in middle school, my friend was upset about a pimple on her face. I told her she looked perfectly fine, but she told me, "You don't understand, because you always look like that."

"Come and get it, I'm giving it away!"

When I was about 11, my friend and I were playing outside on a hot Florida summer day. After a while, we decided to go to her house to cool off in the air conditioning for a bit.

I had let her borrow a pair of my shorts that day, and when we came inside, her dad threw a fit about how short they were. He proceeded to sing, "Come and get it, I'm giving it away!" in a jaunty tune at her until she changed. 

To this day, 16 years later, I can still hear his ugly/jolly voice singing that song every time I put on a pair of shorts.

"Your hair doesn't look THAT bad today."

Growing up, I was picked on constantly, but most of the kids who bullied me eventually stopped by middle/high school. Except for one girl in particular. She was the band director's stepdaughter, basically making it impossible for me to do anything about it. 

I'll never forget the day when we got our pictures taken in our marching band uniforms. I had just gotten my hair cut and highlighted the day before, and thought I looked really pretty. 

She walked up to me and said, "Oh, your hair doesn't look THAT bad today." 

I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach.