After having been at home, and visiting with friends I began to think. This can be a dangerous hobby for me because I tend to over-analyze things, danger of my profession. None-the-less I began thinking about my future, which also led to memories from my past. Now I'd going to try and keep this post as un-random as possible, but with me you never know where I'm going to go. =)
One of the friends I met up with has been a good friends since high school. She's one of those friends that even though you haven't seen each other in months, you can still just pick right back up with as if no time had passed. I love those types of friends, there's no awkward moments where you're both trying to figure out what to talk about, and you both just kind of click. Anyways, one of the many things we talked about was our upcoming 10 year reunion, a highly scary thought. A lack of funds, and a want to make the event family friendly, has meant that the planning committee teamed up with the local minor league baseball stadium and we will have the reunion there during one of the games. Thinking about the event, and the fact that many classmates have families, made me think about where my own life is. Here's where I might lose you, my brain works differently than most people's I think because I went from thinking about being happy where my life is right now, to thinking about how I want children one day, to how I don't want to have girls, before finally settling on how painful the teasing was when I was a child about my weight.
I hope you followed that train of thought, lol. Allow me to go into detail about each level of thought here. First, I am happy at where my life is right now. I'm about to get a degree in a field that I enjoy, I've made a change for the better in my life, and I'm rediscovering happiness. I'd say things are going rather well (now if I could just find that job, everything would be perfect!). I know that eventually part of this overall happiness with my life will involve someone special, and eventually after that children. Right now I'm fine without this, but I know that I will want this at some point in my life. Once I got the thinking about children though, my brain wandered into wanting boys rather than girls. Since being overweight runs in my family, and being a girl myself, I know that socially it is more acceptable for a boy to be overweight than a girl. I'm not saying this is all right, I'm just saying that it is more acceptable for a male to be a little overweight than for a female. Naturally this stems from my own experiences as a child, which is how I got to thinking about being teased as a child. Hopefully you followed all that, lol.
Grade school was difficult for me for many reasons. In Kindergarten I was in a gifted and talented program, slated to be placed in advanced courses and then visual problems began to hold me back. By First grade I was having to go to a special education class for some subjects to get extra help. In the span of one year I went from being the top of the class, to the bottom. I even had a teacher tell me that I would be lucky to graduate high school (No teacher should ever tell a child that!!!!). This is in part why I chose to study Educational Psychology. Maybe I could prevent another child from having to deal with the embarrassment of having to leave their class to go get remedial help if they didn't need it. I was teased for this, and since I had a teacher that didn't think I was smart enough to finish school she never did anything to stop the teasing.
As mentioned before, I have also always been overweight. I was wearing women's plus sized clothing in elementary school, and have never been out of them since. Students would tease me for not being able to climb across the monkey bars, or for being winded after having run back to the playground door to back to class. Although there were many times I was teased, the one that hurt the most happened in Middle School when several boys in one of my classes took small pieces of paper and wrote things on them such as "wide load" and "fatty" before sticking them throughout my hair. When I realized what was going on I went to the teacher who informed me that I'd be dealing with it the rest of my life and I needed to get used to it. (I had a lot of bad teachers!) Another experience I had was trying out for the soccer team in middle school. Although I've never been particularly athletic, I always kind of wanted to be. When my school announced they were beginning a co-ed soccer team I signed up for the 3 day try-out immediately! I've always loved soccer. When I showed up and there were only 12 people there I was basically told I was a shoe in for the team, everyone would get in since you had to be there for all the days of try-outs to be on the team. Day 2 had the same people, so I felt confident I'd be on the team, and I was so excited! On day 3 though many more people showed up. Some of the others had been playing soccer since they were 5 or 6 and were a lot better than I was. I still held hope though that I would make the team since I had attended all the days of try-outs. When the list was posted though I wasn't on it. When I asked the coach why since I had been there all the days and he had said that you had to be there every day to be on the team, he told me that he was concerned for my health and well being. He didn't want me to get hurt by playing, he had been worried during try-outs and was worried I was pushing myself too hard.
My family loves to tell the story of me at about age 5 answering our front door to find our family pastor. When he saw that it was me he said, "Hi Lisa". Apparently without missing a beat I responded with hands on hips, "Leverand (reverend was apparently too difficult for me to say) Thorton it's Liza with a Z not Lisa with an S." I was quite the spitfire as a child, but as I got older and my self-esteem took hit after hit I began to allow myself to fade into the background. Maybe if the popular girls didn't see me they wouldn't make fun of the fact that I can't wear the cute clothes. Maybe if I never talked to the boys they wouldn't notice that I was bigger than the other girls and make fun of me. I became a quiet, wallflower, happy to just fade into the background. It's never been who I am though, although I've grown comfortable with it, I never was that girl. My weight prevented me from doing things many people do. I didn't go on my first date in high school, I didn't have a date to prom, and my first kiss in high school barely counts since it was with a boy who was openly gay (I can't make this stuff up people!). Although I feel like I missed out on things, I wouldn't go back and change a thing. These experiences have shaped who I am today, and for that I am grateful.
I'm not sure I could handle seeing it happen to a daughter though. This is where the idea of only wanting boys comes from. As a parent I don't think I could handle seeing my own child suffer through the ridicule that I went through. Since I know personally how difficult it can be for an overweight girl growing up, maybe that's where this thought stems from, but it is a difficult thing to think about. Seeing as I'm not planning on having children anytime soon though, I think I don't have to worry too much about this now. I do know one thing though, when I have kids they will have a mom that will run around the yard and play with them, cook them healthy meals, and encourage them to be who they are regardless of what other people think. =)
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