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A Valentine from the Weird Girl
That’s me, at age 12, with hair too big to fit into a ponytail and an awkwardly chubby body that few fashionable outfits could cover or even forgive. They called me the weird kid, at school, and they weren’t necessarily wrong. At that age, I collected pins from US presidential elections, would rather talk to horses than people and hid in the bathroom almost every recess to listen to The Doors on my beat-up Sony Discman. I didn’t fit in any of the boxes and at that age — hell, at any age — the people around you can smell the oddity on your slightly panicked breath.
As most kids of my kind, I reacted to the situation by adopting a “screw you” attitude, and that was never as visible as on that dreadful day when popularity and attractiveness was being judged and measured. On Valentine’s Day every year, students would send roses to each other, to be delivered in class on full display to the other students. The popular girls would ooh and aah over the bunches of flowers that landed on their desks, while others, like myself, would loudly declare how silly and obsolete this phony holiday was and how we actively refused to participate in anything from dances to decorations.
Once I reached high school I finally caved, but as the world still wouldn’t comply and my appearance and personality still did not merit any roses, I foolishly decided to send some to myself. The plan was to change how everyone viewed me; to re-brand the weirdo if you will. But the execution did not exactly give the desired result.
On Feb. 14, 1996, I cemented my unfortunate reputation as three red roses landed on my desk for the first time in my 15-year-old life. If it had ended there, things would have been ok, but for some reason I had to get greedy, and add a card to the delivery.
I got held back after class by Eva, my saint of a teacher, who wanted to know if I was doing ok? She had heard the other girls snickering and gossiping about my flower delivery and that rumors had started that I sent them to myself. She picked up the card from my trembling hand and said “you realize none of the boys your age have ever heard of Walt Whitman, much less would send a card with one of his poems?”
And I knew I had been exposed.
I wanted so badly not only to be the recipient of roses, meriting that kind of adulation, but to be loved by someone so perfect that he would know the words of Whitman and place them on that card. As so often before and after that day, I fell victim to my own expectations, and as I stood before my teacher it felt like a horrible price to pay for caring about that thing I had deemed as silly and obsolete.
I see the weird girls around, and I desperately want to tell them that I am one of them. I see their smudged black eyeliner, oversized hoodies and their painted-on pouts and I want to say that the only difference between them and me is that my back is straighter now, all these years later, and that I know it is ok to passionately long for all the clubs that keep you out.
Tomorrow there will be many girls with empty desks, many weirdos without flowers, and I’ll nod and smile as I see them walk back empty-handed from school. Yes, we are weird girls, but that word does not encompass all the things we hold inside. We’re the smart girls, the dark girls, the tough girls, the mushy and romantic girls and all those years of empty desks shape us into the perfectly weird women we are, and for the perfect card to one day find us.
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I’m sorry, growing up is hard.
I bet you weren’t as weird as you remember.
Those girls who looked so included, so popular, to you were probably not feeling that way inside. They may even have sent themselves roses. That’s how they spotted you.
I’ve now raised 4 girls, and was once a girl myself. It is hard for ALL of them, and NOBODY feels popular. Popular is what other people are, you are never the well liked person on the inside.
That’s just my experience. My 17 year old right now will have days that she swears she has no friends and she is the outcast, just before she asks if she can go out with friends. She really can’t see the irony.
My daughter-in-law often comments how the same daughter has a friend at every store and several times every trip she is greeted with a hug by someone… yet my daughter will say she has no friends. Or she is too homely to go out in public, as she sends the weirdest silly pictures to her non-existent friends on snapchat.
Growing up is hard.
The post, and Sash’s comment, reminds me of ‘Chance,’ an SF story by Connie Willis…in which a woman returns to the place where she went to college and encounters…her former self. I reviewed it here:
Author appreciation: Connie Willis
Love this!
Yeah, I pretty well hated Valentine’s day for years. Same with Prom, homecoming, etc. Even broke a tooth one v-day.
Janis Ian?
I grew up in the country, socially stilted. Didn’t have a date until I was 17. There were, and still are, lots of us.
Like Sash said, many of us felt well, different. I was on the outside, but at least people were polite to me. You looked like a beautiful young girl, and clearly have turned into a sensitive, beautiful woman. Thanks for your sharing, Annika.
I hope you don’t mind me saying that I think you are cute then and now.
How about a virtual rose? I like just about all you write and it is a small token of my appreciation!
Listening to the Doors too young could make anyone weird.
What kind of school did you go to where the boys sent roses to girls in class? I know that never happened in my school.
I don’t think all that is not normal–Awkward kids in school–kind of the norm.
Having spent my junior high and high school years taller than everyone, but younger, and much weirder, I still feel that little stitch of pain that binds all of us weird girls together. Thank you for the beautiful essay.
Yup been there. It’s still painful to recall.
Thanks for having the strength and character to share this so eloquently. I’m 100% sure your little guy knows his momma is the most beautiful girl around!
Thanks for this, from a hybrid of both “Pinky” and “The Brain” [junior high through college]. Your words are gems; I always learn from you! [A Valentine from an avid reader.]
Sounds just like me, except for my not being Swedish, or Jewish, or a girl, or all that into roses …
But you smell great! At least from this distance anyway.
Even most of the popular kids think they’re weird, out of place and just pretending. That’s just the way it is. And if you try to tell them otherwise it just proves they’re right. That is why youth is wasted on the young.
Fantastic post! I also was the chubby, smart, unfashionable, and socially awkward girl in junior high and high school. It was awful knowing that I was invisible to all the boys. My family was poor and I always struggled with having enough well fitting clothes. What made it more apparent is that I usually ended up befriending the pretty girls. I now understand that I posed no social threat to the pretty girls on top of being a good person. It has been a long journey in seeing myself as more than that vulnerable young girl.
Where do no high school boys know about Walt Whitman? Leaves of Grass is famously what Bill Clinton used to seduce his wife, Gynifer, Monica, et al . . .
Anyway, you turned out great. I saw you on TV, you were in Sweden.
Love this post.
Thank you :)
In a Swedish High School, Whitman is lost on the masses :) And thank you, I’m glad you liked the interview!
He now presents me with Valentine’s every year, so everything turned out pretty great :)
Oh, I hear that, from one tall girl to another. Happy Valentine’s!
Thank you!!
Virtual roses are much appreciated :)
Thank G-d Swedish schools don’t have prom OR homecoming, or I would have hated those as well… That tooth thing sounds like a good story, though…
Amen, amen. I have a 14-year-old boy and it seems girls are not the only ones who suffer through that coming of age-hell..
The exciting thought
That beauty is possible
Sustains us all.
— James Day Hodgson, American Senryu
I remember my terribly awkward youth. Lazy eye and poor gait, I spent most of my time with my pastor. Socially terrified, I was mostly a recluse — but became quite the fixture around the church. My corrective shoes made my posture uneven, causing my right shoulder to jut out far above the other. Still, I was put to work as a bell boy. Schlepping people’s stuff back and forth as they incessantly jingled and tinkled at the front desk for assistance. I never got a promotion to 40 hours a week, only working quasi part-time while sneaking out during the renaissance festival. Man, how I loved, loved the frozen Frollo.
It worked out in the end. Posted about it a couple of years ago here:
http://ricochet.com/archives/bad-luck-on-valentines-day/
I’ve got 4 girls, aged 8 through 16, and their school (a private Christian school) goes to great lengths to keep v-day from isolating people. In the weeks prior the school lets kids (and parents) order flowers, candy, singing telegrams, all to be delivered by the senior boys or girls (as appropriate) on the day – so lots of times friends buy things for each other, anonymity guaranteed.. Today when I dropped them off, the senior boys were all dressed in coats and ties and escorting the ladies to their classes, one teacher was playing romantic accordion music in the hallways, and the girls could come to school dressed up instead of their normal uniforms.
So the day is turned into a light hearted party for everyone.