HOW I LEARNED TO EMBRACE MY DIFFERENCES

The room echoed in sighs as Mrs. Cee paced the classroom isles awaiting a response from her students. “Who wants to hang around with Kristen at recess this morning? No one? What about you Jessica?” Turning to her desk, she picked up a white notepad for keeping track of student attendance. “Alright, I will randomly select two names from the list.” The sighs and “oh no’s” got louder as heads began turning in their hands whenever she glanced at her list. “Alright, Chelsie and Brandy, it is your turn to keep Kristen company.” Putting away their books and notepads, the bell rang. Everyone flocked to the door to grab their jackets. Chelsie and Brandy shrugged their shoulders, scuttling like little sea creatures amid the ocean floor toward the class entrance worried about being called out and picked on. Classmates were always assigned to me in order to avoid the angst of loneliness and languid isolation.

Laughter grew louder and louder. Both girls ditched me as we walked outside the corridors. I climbed on top of the jungle gym to hide from school yard bullies. “Look, it’s our callow acquaintance!” I glanced around with nowhere to run. Bullies surrounded every exit point. “Peasant, tie my shoe,” one of them said, while the others at the bottom were on the lookout for authority figures. “Meet us at the baseball field after school so we can beat you up.” I wept as I gazed toward the empty field. I wore hard contact lenses under thick bifocals. I worried someone would shatter my contacts and damage my eyes. I knew I had to do something.

I was treated like a “peasant” from an older era and called one, too. Everyone laughed and knew what it meant, except me. I had a hard time understanding jokes and maintaining friendships. I was the odd girl everyone labelled “a strange kid with googly eyes who couldn’t see straight.” I broke when threatened to get a beating from more than one person. I finally had enough.

At eight years old, I received a diary from a special person on my birthday. That’s when things started lining up in my favour. I wrote every day about the frustration, angst, and turmoil in my heart. I finally developed the strength and courage to talk with my teachers, even though everyone started calling me a retarded freak of a tattle-tale who will never amount to anything.

I was the victim who, for years, stood alone, failing to tell my parents, family members, and authority figures. I learned that not everyone will be your friend if your appearance stands out in a different way. I knew I looked, acted, and walked different and I told myself that in order to succeed in this world, I had to first accept who I was and embrace my differences. When fifth grade ended, so did “assigned friends.” I spent the remainder of elementary alone, penning in journals and entering writing contests. I discovered I had an ingrained passion for words. I stopped worrying about what others saw, especially bullies. I learned to embrace ghastly experiences and use each one to write with deep emotion. A lesson I learned was not to let my past hurts control who I would become. The crying stopped and the penning went on the day I decided to walk an unconventional road alone.

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