Not for a million bucks...

I've been trying to figure out where it all went wrong. I've decided everything went downhill, in the four years of hell known as high school. I know, cliche, right? Let's think about this. The high school years are the most important and formative for social opinion and self exploration. They're the years that you look inside yourself and TRY to figure out who you are and what your place is amongst the herd. My place was the auditorium, sometimes during class periods. You may think I have emotional issues or that I need to "get over it and move on", but I'm telling you, if you didn't feel fucked over in high school, then you were the person fucking someone over. I embodied the textbook, high school torture victim. I was desperate to fit in with...anybody...that would give me the time of day. I was in the Gay/Straight alliance, drama club and chorale and I was a Girl Scout until I was seventeen. Fucking dork, right? It's okay to feel that way, some days I look back at myself and wonder just what the heck I was thinking. I'm sure not everybody in my school was gunning for me, but I can assure you there was a small legion, whose mission was to make my life hell on earth...and they succeeded. I didn't skip class because I was bored or I didn't want to learn. I skipped class because I didn't want to deal with the 4 people surrounding me that chose to spend the period employing passive-aggressive, harassment tactics toward me. Bullies can injure more than a person's ego. I know, in the end, if I had wanted to I could've blocked it out and gone on with my life, but I'm not that strong, "I am who I am" kind of person. I never have been and I never will be. I'd like to say people chose to single me out because I was so independent in my thinking, but in reality, I was singled out because I tried way too hard not to be and I couldn't be the chameleon. I didn't blend as I would've liked to. People saw me trying too hard and were more than happy to enjoy the show and aid in the failure. Can I blame them? I probably would've done the same thing if I was higher up on the food chain. I'm sure I did do it to others, if for no other reason, than to make myself feel like I was a little less, awkward. When I got to college, it was like bizarro high school. Everyone there was a dork and I hung out with the coolest dorks. It was a drug and I was addicted...I also smoked a lot of pot, which was the actual drug that became my downfall and subsequent nemesis to the educational process. But I digress.Bullying can affect a person in one of two ways. It either makes you say, "Fuck them. I'm going to show them all just what I can achieve." (Hopefully not in a, shoot up the school sort of way.) Or, it can completely destroy a persons self-esteem, to the point of total defeat.(Hopefully, not in a shoot up the school sort of way.) I went the latter route. Though I can't completely justify ALL of my shortcomings with my experience, on the bullied side of high school bullying, I can lean on it, if only just a little bit. What if I had been left alone for 4 years? Maybe, I still would've blown it. Then again, maybe, I wouldn't have. Funny how those, most uncomfortable in my skin years, seemed to take the longest to pass, yet the past 5 years, when I've started to like myself and despite my deprecation, have felt the most at peace with who I am, have seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. I wish I could go back then, armed with who I am now..actually, fuck that! I wouldn't want to go back to my teen years for a million dollars!