Chapter 8-Higher Education

I did the normal college application thing. I got accepted at Elmira (no sense in changing THAT) and was all set to go in the fall. First though, I had to graduate from high school. Hell, I had a few things to do! Some of them, great…others, not so good.

Let’s start with…the not so good. While working at McDonald’s, I noticed something very interesting. The people who were what I thought “good looking” were always put at the counter to take orders and those who were “less than good looking” were put in the back. You may think I’m exaggerating but I’m not. Seriously. I was the ONLY female in the back cooking for the longest time. All of the skinny, cute girls were at the counter offering free smiles. I was put in the back at the grill where I was always too warm, flustered and irritated because I had to smell that damn food all of the time! I notice it’s not the same way now but it was a very interesting observation.

It was through my job at McDonald’s that I crossed paths with the second guy in my life who didn’t judge me based on my outside. At least, I don’t think he did. We honestly became pretty close friends that year. It was weird hanging out with a guy so much but honestly, it was a pretty good friendship. We both had significant others and weren’t interested in anything but being friends. Thinking back, I wonder if it was convenient that I had a car and he didn’t but truthfully, it didn’t matter then and I could really care less now. Sam was a good guy.

This is hard for me to talk about for several reasons. Firstly, I don’t like to be wrong. What woman doesn’t? Really, though, I don’t like being the bad guy in anything, BUT I guess when you put yourself in that position, you probably need to own up and take responsibility for your actions. Secondly, I am ashamed of my actions. I’m not blaming my weight issue for my choices but the issues I had impacted my decisions. I felt crappy about myself so, like I’ve mentioned in earlier chapters, I made crappy choices. I still think about those decisions and now that I teach kids about self esteem and self concept, I realize I’m the poster child for not having any of either.

Sam and I allowed our friendship to go beyond where it should have been, thus cheating on our significant others. I don’t even like writing it now. Ugh. I have to though. It’s a major part of the rest of the story. At least, I think so. The insecurities that I had about myself played a significant role in the choices I made in my relationship. It was the lowest thing I could have done and I know that now. What’s worse is that it wasn’t the last time I made stupid decisions that affected Jake or myself. Ugh. Enough.

So graduation came and went and so did the parties. More alcohol, more food, and basically the beginning of the freshman 50…yes, 50, not 15. Okay, 50 is an exaggeration, but I definitely gained more than the normal 15 during my freshman year of college. I transferred to another McDonald’s out near college so that I could work and go to school. Good idea at the time but definitely added to the weight issue later.

I guess I thought that being accepted in college would be easy. It wasn’t though. I know this is going to sound weird but you could just tell when people didn’t acknowledge you because of what you looked like. It’s that weird attitude where they kind of look at you, think about saying something and then move on to another subject. It’s definitely hard to explain but so obvious when it happens. The girls on my dorm floor were okay, some much better than others. I think the biggest problem was that they weren’t used to my humor (which is pretty much what I tried to get by on socially) and they were turned off by the fact that I was chunky. Irritating, but true.

So it was freshmen year when we had this big party in conjunction with like a Spring Weekend. I can’t remember the name of it exactly but basically it was a free day to get drunk. Anyhow, I did what was required of me and, well…got very intoxicated. As a matter of fact, I got so intoxicated that I ended up breaking out in hives all over my body. Apparently I had a hidden beer allergy that waited until my college years to show up. Good thing…I didn’t care for beer that much anyhow. In college, you drink what’s cheap and beer…is cheap. So, I’m broken out all over my body and in my drunken stupor make a comment to someone, completely joking, about having crabs. (I should have said scabies…but alcohol helped me to mix up my bugs.) I had these hives up and down my arms and from scratching them, they had scratch lines connecting them so it kinda, not really, looked like scabies. Anyhow, apparently the word crabs came out of my mouth.

It didn’t take long for THAT to get out. Yeah. The whole floor heard that I had crabs but of course no one would tell me what was going on. You know how I found out? I went into the normal “smoking” room where we all went to have a cigarette and the bean bag chair I normally sat on was covered in a clear garbage bag. I didn’t think anything of it at first and just had a cigarette. I finally thought to ask the rooms “owner” about it and she had the balls to tell me. I was like in instant tears over that. How could that be? Seriously? I called my mom bawling and asking to drop out of college because I figured I would never live that one down. (I did) She did the right thing and told me to ignore it, after all, I had put up with years of being called Horny Gorney (yeah, blessed with a GREAT last name!) and it didn’t affect me so why should this? She was right. After a very intense dorm meeting where I got to explain my hives/crabs…all was better, but still it was so strange…the girls up there still didn’t treat me the same.

Jake and I were still together and despite my stupidity (which he didn’t know about of course) and we were going to get married. I realize now that it would have been the biggest mistake EVER (no offense- it’s just that you shouldn’t get married to someone you cheat on- it’s a divorce waiting to happen I think) but at the time, I was into it. What I didn’t realize was that his feelings had changed, probably due to the fact that he wanted a completely different wedding than I wanted. He wasn’t physically there to do anything about it so I just went ahead and started making plans the way I wanted it to be. It didn’t take long for things to go south at that point and after having my mom put a down-payment on a dress, he split up with me.

I was upset, no doubt. I did the whole 7th grade stalking thing all over again only this time it was worse. Now I was racking up massive phone bills and not paying them. I realize now though that I had no right to be upset. I asked for it. The one person at that point in my life who I could rely on not to pass judgment on me had been deceived by me. I had it coming. I deserved what I got and shame on me for expecting anything different. Honestly, as devastated as I felt, I think I was more embarrassed than anything because now I had to tell my mom. Yeah, that didn’t go too well.

So I stuck in a few extra pounds after the initial shock of being single wore off. (I lost weight while I was grieving) College life returned to normal and I was ready to finish up that year with a bang. Oh and was it! (a bang!) I must say that I did not party nearly as much as most of the people I lived with. I even have video to show it! Instead of drinking, dancing and hanging out in whatever club a fake I.D. could get me into, I worked at Mickey D’s to make up some of the money that my parents couldn’t afford to give me. I would have better off partying. I would have gained less weight! In any case, due to my work-a-holic ways, I went home freshman year with no boyfriend, a couple good friends, a whole lot of laundry, and a 1.9 GPA and to top it off, that almost made me a permanent fixture in Small Town as a 1.9 was not acceptable. Shit. Now what?