Chapter 6- High School- Part 3

You would think that I would have been the quiet kid. You know, the one who wouldn’t speak up often, a wallflower as such. I wasn’t though. I was a doormat, but I wasn’t a wallflower. I can actually say that my very close friend helped me find myself by the end of that year. I could easily dub 10th grade as the year I became me. Odd. You wonder why. I became me that year but after high school, I forgot who I was and it wasn’t until very recently that I realized who I was again. Amazing how weight could be so important in that whole process.

I can’t remember the course of events totally but somehow I became class vice-president and a very good friend was president. We can call her Trisha. Trisha was dating this guy, who I really didn’t care for. He seemed like a big baby to me and he really wasn’t that sociable. I had met him back in 9th grade because he had been dating another friend at the time. We can call him Sean, and that’s no name change. I’m sure you will understand why later, if you don’t already. I can remember getting so upset with Trisha for spending all of her time with Sean and forgetting her friends but as I found out later, that’s exactly what happens to most teen girls.

Anyhow, due to unforeseen circumstances, Trisha ended up having to move away. Not only did I lose a friend but, her position as class president came open. As vice-president, I was given the opportunity to complete the school year as president. CRACK! Any shell that was keeping me in was gone. I realized quickly that I was meant to do this kind of thing. I was meant to be a leader, even if it was just for a bunch of teenagers. This was where I began to find “me”. I know not everyone agreed with me and I tried way to hard to please everyone but this was what I was meant to do. I could easily dub 10th grade as the best year. As for my weight, I think I stopped letting it bother me as much because I had other things to focus on.

In fall of my 11th grade year (1993-1994) when school started back up, I took on the role as the class president by getting VOTED in. Yes! Inside, I felt equal to the others. I felt popular in some sort of way. Maybe it was because I felt accepted. I don’t know what it was for sure, but it felt good. I was in my element. No matter what I looked like on the outside, I believed that somehow people had faith in me. That’s what I tried to think at least. I took that role very seriously. Some may say I went overboard but I don’t care. I knew I was doing what I needed to be doing- for ME. In addition, I knew that if I had stayed in Suburbia, I didn’t have a chance in hell of having that type of position so I was thankful (finally) that we had moved. As a class, we set a goal of going to Disney World on our senior trip. No class had gone since like the beginning of time because whoever did go before apparently didn’t behave.

That year I continued with volleyball and having to walk from school to home. Any summer weight I gained, I at least hid by toning up. I was still bigger than most of the other girls though. I still played the bench which didn’t do me any favors but when you’re playing a game to win, you don’t want the clutzy, fat girl playing. I didn’t like it but I understood and went with it. Honestly, my heart wasn’t in it. I think I was only playing because I wanted to be accepted by the other girls playing and maybe be noticed by some of the more athletically inclined guys. Neither really happened.

Skiing, like I said, I stuck with even if I didn’t really give a damn about Kyle anymore. Cheerleading though…that was just a joke that nobody clued me in on. Why didn’t someone just say, “you’re too big to be a cheerleader”? I got tired of the drama that followed all cheerleading squads and to be honest, I think I had gained so much pride by becoming class president that I finally had too much pride to let my fat ass hang out of a small skirt that certainly didn’t do any justice to my (full) figure. No cheerleading for the rest of my high school life. Thank God. I learned a lot but having girls stand on me was no longer in the cards.

I think prom junior year truly engulfs the entire idea that guys weren’t interested in the heavy chick. While some of the other girls in my class had been going to prom since they were in 8th or 9th grade, depending on their boyfriends, I had not had that opportunity. When junior year came around, I wanted to go to prom. My friend hooked me up with a “blind date” type thing with this guy from another district. He seemed nice and I figured maybe it would turn into something. Completely a pun intended here…Fat chance!

Because of my plus size, finding a normal prom dress was difficult but we did it. I can’t say that it was really a prom type dress but it worked. I look at pictures now and it was pretty, just not something normal for prom. In any case, at least I had something and it fit me right.

My parents, who have always gone above and beyond with certain things (yet sometimes the most basic things were overlooked) went sky’s the limit with this prom. I think that deep down, they were pretty happy that I had a date and was doing the whole prom thing just like the other kids. I arrived at the prom with my date and two others in style; a white limo pulled into Small Town Central’s back parking lot and let us out. No one else had that so I was cool (or so I thought). What I didn’t know is that behind the scenes (or behind our backs) people were making fun of the whole thing. I couldn’t understand it then really but now I know why. I still wasn’t accepted as part of the “in-crowd, even though I was getting a Regents diploma, I played sports, I was class president and to top it off, now I was going to prom! Wow…what did a girl have to do?

So the evening started out fine. Rick and I (that’s my dates alias) had dinner, talked, got pictures done and danced once. Of course I flitted around to talk with friends and I watched people dance. (I may have danced too but I’ve never been a fan to be honest). I started to notice that Rick was hanging around with a girl who was in a class below me. I really didn’t think anything of it at first. Then I noticed he was slow dancing with her…not once, but almost every song. He was whispering in her ear. No matter what he was saying, his actions spoke so much louder. I was getting ditched at the prom! Damnit! (I could throw in another WTF right here!). How lucky was that? By the end of the night I was so glad to be going home, that the limo couldn’t get there quick enough. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how disappointing it was for me. My own date, ditched me for another girl at the PROM! You know that karma thing? Well, it wasn’t too many days later that I heard that Rick had some “issues” in the past, like putting dead puppies in the freezer until spring when they could bury them. Yeah. I guess I wasn’t missing out on as much as I thought. Sayonara Rick!

My size and clutziness became obvious during gym class in 11th grade. I wasn't able to get out of gym as easily in high school as I had been able to in middle school. Coach didn't give us the opportunity to write lines for forgetting gym clothes. He just went all the way to the top. If we weren't prepared for gym, he threatened to have you wear one of those wrestling leotard things. Now I don't know anyone who had to but I sure wasn't going to be the first! Can you just imagine a fat girl in one of those??? I would have been MORE scarred for life! So anyhow, it was during 11th grade that I ended up on injured reserve because I couldn't keep up. If you went to Small Town Central, you knew the most hated gym class were those where we had to square dance! Ugh. I hated the idea of touching other people and having them touch me! I was insecure still, even if I did a hell of a job hiding it. So here we are, just dosey-doing and promenading around the gym and I decided to give my dosey do a little personality and when I came down, CRACK...there goes an ankle. I friggen sprained my ankle square dancing. Coach said it was only the 2nd injury he had during that unit EVER. God that made me feel like crap. Anyhow, as if that wasn't embarassing enough, I was too heavy and too weak in the arms to carry myself around on crutches and ended up using them incorrectly which resulted in pinched nerves under my arms. I just can't win!

Maybe 11th grade wasn’t the greatest but senior year was awesome! Hell yeah! We were seniors! We were getting out of there and never coming back! I always say, you spend 4 years trying to get out of high school and then another 4 more wishing you could go back. Not me! I wasn’t going to be that person! I was moving on to bigger, better things! Uh huh…yeah…we’ll see.

During the summer between my junior and senior years, I was afforded a luxury that many 16 year old kids were not. I was given a car as a 16th birthday present. It wasn’t any old car either. It was a 1986 Cadillac Seville. Yeah. Leather interior, digital display and a black cherry color to die for. It was nice. My mom saved that car for me I think. In any case, do you know how much crap I took from kids at school for it? I thought I had overcome the fat thing, even though I hadn’t overcome being fat. I thought that maybe I had made some headway in the whole social aspect of being a teenager but apparently having a car given to you was a big no-no. I wish I had read the rule book for teenagers BEFORE I became one! Oh well.