Wherein I Remember My Junior High Awkwardness and Forgive Myself For It

The last couple weeks has been a whirlwind of awards assemblies, dance festivals, talent show rehearsals, and other end-of-the-school-year activities. My parents, in-laws, and two little boys came with me to watch Sian's awards assembly. The boys, who are young, were less than thrilled to sit through two hours of nothing but watching high school kids walk across the stage, but they got through somehow. I was very proud of Sian, who received several awards for all her hard work. She graduates from high school tomorrow, which surprises me. Wasn't she just starting her first day of kindergarten?

Today, I left Sian home with Little Gary (who has now graduated from kindergarten) and went to see Sophia's eighth grade awards assembly. Held in the gym, it was a loud, messy affair, and I arrived late because I first had to drop off the elementary school kids. I held up the wall for a while, mingling with other parents and loose children who had arrived too late to snag a place on the bleachers, but when I spotted an empty seat that was consistently empty, I took my opportunity (I'm no stoic). Unfortunately, I got there too late to see Sophia's academic award. Fortunately, I arrived in time to see her get a drama award. Unfortunately, I left feeling depressed.

I didn't feel depressed because of Sophia. She's worked hard, as well, and I'm pleased for her. No, I realized I felt depressed because I was reliving my own junior high school experience in my head while I watched the kids interact in front of me.
                                                                                                Eva Aurora at age 13. Note lack of neon.
Funny how feelings from decades past can still hit you out of the blue. I do not care in any way as an adult that I was not a popular kid in junior high school, that the unfashionable hand-me-downs I wore provoked unkind teasing from the popular kids, and that I went to sleep at night dreaming of these really rad outfits in which neon colors figured prominently. I don't even care that my more well-off friends and I kind of split during seventh grade, they rising in the ranks of popularity with their nice clothes and cute hair while I stayed behind in Nerd Kingdom. The thing was, I really liked my nerdy friends. They were genuine, they didn't care about my hand-me-downs, and they encouraged my intellect. When I switched schools, I found more good friends and enjoyed their company even as my quality of dress went up.

So why the sudden sensation of failure in the junior high gym? I was watching the line of student body officers, who congratulated each academic award winner with a handshake -- the cool kids, the rebels, the nerds, the nice kids, all of them herded together and sent along the line one at a time.

All of the SBOs fall into the popular kid category, and you could see it in their sense of style and stature even if they were all wearing the same team jersey. The girls among them made sure to look each student in the eye and congratulate them with a smile. Most of the boys did, too, but a couple of them would be chatting to each other and wouldn't pay attention to the kids whose hands they shook. It was obvious which kids receiving awards were their friends and which kids were not, even if these particular male SBOs weren't being consciously unkind. I felt for those children with the hand-me-down clothes and the postures that yelled loud and clear that they did not feel confident about themselves. Here was another knock to their sense of esteem, another indication that they were overlooked and unimportant to the kids they may have looked up to and wished to be like.

Or maybe they didn't care after all. You never know.

I walked back to my car and thought about the unexpected upwelling of feeling inside me. Even if I don't care about popularity contests with others, I realized that I so often beat myself with that same stick of shame that I used to feel in junior high and high school. I just don't match up to my own ideal. I don't keep my house wonderfully tidy or speak only in soft, dulcet tones to my children. I get frustrated and angry and I forget important things sometimes and I'm so tired of being tired and fat and why can't I just lose the weight already and be perfect and decorate my home to look like one of those magazines I love to look at? Why did I feel like I had one foot in the grave this morning when my 12-year-old girl made a face at the way I had tied my lovely new red and pink scarf and said, "That's really old fashioned, Mom!"

Funny how we're really the same people after all. That little junior high girl is still in me even if I have grown and matured in mind and body. I imagine her now standing in front of me and I tell her she's loved and smart and good enough. She has so many amazing plans and projects to accomplish, and it doesn't matter now, 30 years later, about clothes or popularity or anything so fleeting and ephemeral as that. In 30 more years, will I feel the same way about myself now? Will I reassure my 40-something self that the tidiness of the house or the fact that my children often look like orphans because of their clothing choices aren't at all important? One can only hope. One can also hope I figure it all out at some point before I die.