background check.

out of absolutely nowhere tonight, i had a memory flashback to my 9th grade class picture.  the entire class sitting on the bleachers in the gym.  i sat, almost literally, in the dead- center of the class of over 150 kids.  I wore my hair piled high in a pony-tail on the very top of my head and had on one of those canvas-material pull-overs that were popular in the late-eighties, early-nineties... mostly with the potheads.  not that i was a pot-head, since i would have shy'd away if one of them had even spoken to me.  i forget what that shirt was called, but if you grew up in that era, i'm sure you know what i'm talking about.  mine had the Corona logo imprinted on the back.  
i thought about myself in that most crucial of turning point years.  i had transferred to the public school from the comfort of my small catholic school (90-some kids total from K-8th grade.)  i had grown up in that school and had been terrified to leave.  so, instead of moving on to the high school everyone else was going to, i tried to extend my lower grade experience by moving over to the public jr. high, which at that time ran 6-9th grades.  so, not only was i shell-shocked to enter a huge public school, i was also entering it in my fellow classmates' final year.  they had secured their friendships and bonds.  this was like senior year for the entire school, but me.  as if i wouldn't have already stuck out being quite awkward at 13 with too long hair and too wide-set teeth, i emerged with a need to establish who i was in the world.  i tried out for sports, music, national honors society, while continuing down my artsy path by drawing the art for and writing in the poetry magazine... i was like someone threw the brat pack from the breakfast club into a blender and drank it!
yet, no matter which clubs i joined, or which sports i didn't make the cut for, i never seemed to fit in.  i was too quiet for the punk crowd, too artsy for the cool girls, too smart for the smart kids, too goody-goody for the pot-heads, too uncoordinated for the athletes, too tone deaf for the band kids... you get my point. 
the two friends i did have consisted of the two girls who didn't really belong anywhere else, either.  B, who i am still friends with and see yearly around christmas, was my alter-ego from day one, even though she was quite athletic and much more sarcastic than i could have ever hoped to be.  S, who i will most likely never know what happened to, was a lost soul.  even at that young age.  i wonder sometimes if i'd picked her up because i thought i could save her, or because she intrigued me by being my polar opposite. 
however it was that the three of us became friends, the two of them ended up saving me.  i was lost in that world of brand names and steady boyfriends.  but S, B, and i had sleep overs that consisted of movie marathons and dr. pepper.  one night we played mini golf in my basement until 5:00a.m. using a nerf set i had gotten in about 3rd grade.  we had fun.  silly fun.  it was what i had been looking for to extend my youth by one more year.
by the end of 9th grade, i transferred back to catholic school, and somehow managed to bring B with me, securing at least those next three years of my life with a built-in BFF.  


i hated and loved and dreaded and grew during each and every day of that school year.  more so than any other school year i'd had prior to or since.  i know that most of the inner strength i pride myself on now came from braving those halls some 20 years ago.  i know that i would not be who i am now without the aid of that transitional time or the friends that i made, or more-so didn't make, while there.  
i think it's funny that out of the blue, my class picture popped into my head tonight, stirring up thoughts that i haven't had in years.  and yet each detail is so imprinted on my brain that i even remember what shoes i was wearing on the day that picture was taken (green converse sneakers- low tops.)  i guess that's how it works.  you never know what it is that's going to help you grow into the person you'll later be, but each and every step i take gets me closer to being her.  the woman i am, the woman i am going to be.  and i have each and every day of each and every school year, summer camp, being a camp councilor, cashier, assistant, manager, mother, friend, etc., etc., etc. to thank for making me who i am right now.