Snippet of a Story

I recently realised how much growth and change I have gone through over the past few years, probably especially since leaving high school. I think some of the most important life lessons are learnt after leaving highschool. I’ve learnt I love writing; poems, stories, essays.. you name it, I’m your girl. After a bit of writer’s block, and a bit of reflection, I’ve decided to share a bit of my story here for you. So from my heart to yours, here’s a snippet of a much bigger story of my life as a teenager, and how it changed.

Let me take you back to an easier time, grade 6, let’s say, to a little girl, sitting in Mrs. Wren’s classroom, squinting up at a blackboard (yes, we used blackboards). All the self confidence in the world was in the eyes of this little girl. It was her first, “real” school experience, after being homeschooled for most of her primary years. She couldn’t wait to start grade 6 at a “real” school, and make millions of friends.

It was that year when her confidence started to crash.

Primary school kids can be the most cruel of all people, hands down. She made friends as quickly as she lost them, but there were only a couple of people who she could truly call “friends.” Ridiculed for being “too smart”, she soon was the little girl who sat by herself, nose in her books, as cliche as that was, it happened to her.

Needless to say, she left that school fairly quickly and went back to homeschooling. A month later, her mother invested into getting her some glasses, for her atrocious eyesight. She loved being able to see everything, and didn’t really care what she looked like wearing them.

Next year, grade 7, she started at another “real” school. This one was far worse than the last. With a mixed class and a total of 15 students and only 5 girls her age, she felt outnumbered. Her friendly, happy disposition didn’t help her at all. Almost instantly, she was ridiculed for wearing glasses, being a bookworm and a “teacher’s pet” (which she didn’t see anything wrong with, mind you.) Her “friends” had dated every boy in the class, and she was shunned for saying no to the one, “loser” boy who had asked her, saying she had “lost her chances for good” (let’s not forget.. grade 7!!!).

The rest of that term was a tough one. She had books stolen from her, deodorant sprayed into her face and forced to eat alone at lunch time, without the company of books. She was left alone in the bush behind the school, her “friends” saying they’d come back for her (Some friends, hey?).

Her feelings were hurt, she was scared and had heard so many curse words in the first week of school than she had ever heard in her life.

And it hurt.

It hurt being the only one who was left out. It hurt being the “weird, homeschooled kid” and the one who liked reading. It hurt being left out and made fun of. It hurt not having any friends, and it hurt knowing she was alone in school.

She begged her mum to let her leave after only going there for a term, which her mother agreed to.

This was the root of the problem, which followed her through her highschool years. In grade 8, she started at a lovely little school, which she stayed with until graduation. She had her fair share of drama and troubles there, but nothi
ng worse than the insecurity she had in herself, especially after hitting puberty. She felt compared, ugly and annoying to those people around her.

I just wanted to let you know, it gets better. Sometimes life isn’t fair, but it deals the same unfairness to everybody eventually. No one else’s life is going to be easy going all the time. Did I ever want to give up? Of course. But would I have? No way, because at the end of the day, your life is something beautiful, that only you can cherish. And you’re going to make it ❤

To be continued 😀