I may have mentioned that I was blisteringly insecure for a good portion of my life. I would even venture to say that I was until freshman year of college. There are a lot of reasons this insecurity came about (see this post), not to mention the intense pressures of living in our society, but just recently I remembered an incident from middle school that really bothered me.
Not many of us were incredibly well adjusted in middle school. It is just impossible with our shiny braces and awkwardly long limbs swinging everywhere (I have never quite recovered from that one). My problem in my eighth grade English class became a girl named Kaylee (identity protected, although I doubt she would ever read this).
Kaylee seemed nice to the naked eye. She would talk to me, was very pretty, and super sporty. All of these factors made her super popular and well liked in my school. I had no real group to fit into as I was neither a “super nerd” nor “super athletic”, but I talked to her anyway. I didn’t realize til much later how mean she really was. She wouldn’t, after all, talk to me when cooler kids were around.
Here’s the worst thing that she ever did to me: the girl shamed me for getting good grades. Now I know it isn’t appropriate to lord getting good grades or intelligence over others. I’ve had people do that to me and it really sucks. But when people ask them to show me my grade, they need to shut up and accept the consequences. Kaylee didn’t take my A’s to her D’s very well (that was an appropriate boob comparison as well). She actually got mad at me and yelled at me for doing so well.
I am most embarrassed about my reaction because for a while, I let her make me feel guilty for doing well. I hid my grades from my peers and was ashamed of doing well in my best subject. Luckily, I was snapped out of that funk pretty quickly. Why in the heck should I be ashamed for succeeding? It was only later that I realized that Kaylee was projecting her grades onto me.
This may not seem like such a big deal to some people, but for someone who decided to found their life on being intelligent at a young age, it was hard for me. I am glad it happened though, because it started my slow transition into a person who doesn’t let others shame me for what I do and what I like. The result couldn’t have been better. So I guess I can thank Kaylee someday. Too bad I don’t really feel like it.
