Cool To Be Uncool
I met this girl when I was in middle school, she was so pretty and I wanted to be like her. Every jean that didn’t fit was another invisible constant blow to my insecurities. I was that girl; I had become that girl in the corner sitting in the ‘loser’ table as they called it. Over time though it became the ‘loner’ table. I was alone. Even the most unwanted of the crowd steered away from the girl with the messy hair and nerd-tronic vocabulary. The beatings happened soon after. My friends weren’t my friends anymore.
I was obsolete. Boys happened. It was awkward and embarrassing and silly. But it wasn’t he’s me best friend anymore, it was; is he your boyfriend? But unlike all of the others I was the watcher, the unwanted routine in my life became my hobby. Every boy I played dodge ball with in grade school was now my tormentor. I had a friend back then; he was one of my closest friends. Then this happened and I started liking him. Then I told him and I ended up with a black eye and a sprained wrist. I wasn’t liked back in fact I was hated. My reminder of inadequacy. I hated boys. Stupid, silly and childish but I couldn’t help but love them too. Dances were big, if you weren’t invited you might as well go crawl under a rock and die a slow painful death. So I learned a new term in science class and decided to look at myself as an asexual- someone who lead a life seeking one-organism reproduction. I told myself I didn’t need anyone. That I was meant to be alone and hated forever. I stood in the sidelines and let everyone else start off without me.
By the time 7th grade rolled around, cliques had been established, girls I used to talk to and were my friends had been paired off with guys I used to play softball with. There was no room for me. Around this time I started seeing something weird in television series and the like, unusual love. Dawson’s Creek, yes that show will forever haunt everyone with a TV and Will & Grace were my introduction to one of the most life changing questions you don’t expect a thirteen year old to ask herself.
“Am I gay?” This only started annoying the hell out of me when the girls at school started steering clear of me like I was a leper. They whispered things loudly like; “Dyke” or “Butch.” Being the slang retarded person I was I didn’t know what those things meant, so I Googled it. Then I started asking myself that question and I wondered why I hadn’t thought about it before. One day I stood in front of a mirror for more than ten minutes, I looked at the way I dressed or the way I wore my uniform to school. I never did like skirts or tight things for that matter. I wore my burgundy skirt low over my waist almost to my knees, my collar shirt was too big a size for me and my hair never did change styles, it was always tied up in a pony tail. I got dirty easily, I liked sports, I didn’t mind and I didn’t wear make up, the only trace of any make up I might of worn was some simple black eyeliner. Never in my thirteen years of life had I been so confused, I had reached an epiphany and a dead end.
They knew I knew. It’s like they were waiting for me to find out. I was lesbian. I was late one day getting dressed for PE and walking out of the lockerooms just as the bell rang. I almost tripped and I kneeled down to tie my shoelaces when I came back up I was surrounded. There were a lot of them and only one of me, boys and girls with rocks in their hands aimed at me. Someone yelled something and then my body hurt like I had just been run over and over and over. After a while I was just lying there breathing hard my knees against my chest. I got up after I was sure no one was around. It hurt to stand up. But I did. Even now when I don’t have the strength or the will to stand and face another beating or life itself I do. I stand.
I cried back then in the silence of the bathroom- the thirteen year old girl grew and changed and didn’t care anymore. In the years of teenage hell that soon followed and are still active I found people who cared and loved me. I didn’t hate boys anymore, I fell in love with one that loved me back and I was comfortable with who I was. I’ve lost people in my life, but every loss has only strengthened me and helped me forever find myself. I still stand. I am different. I am bisexual. I am uncool. I am Angela.
