september, 1998: i am an eighth grader at robious middle school. it's the last year of middle school, but the first time i had been in one. my mother had moved us to a house who's property line between richmond and chesterfield went down the middle of our yard specifically so i could attend robious.
i am the antithesis of the ideal robious student. a few weeks prior to starting school, my sister and my boyfriend had taken pinking shears to my hair, followed by his hair clippers. i had had a field day with a pair of tweezers and i had too much angst to bother with food. i wore one black v-neck knit 3/4 sleeve shirt, faded from wear. jeans. dr. martens. chain link necklace. skull ring. my sister always pounced at any opportunity to make me her personal doll, resulting in a heinous betty page hairdo at 11 and a carrot-orange jaw length frizzy bob at 12.
my appearance and general expression of doom plastered on my face granted me some fascinating experiences, complete with nicknames. one day i was a goth who was going to die from cancer, the next i am a huge dyke who moved here from canada. you know those crazy 13 year old canadian dykes, they're taking over america!
one girl got very stressed by my 'situation'. i found a note in my locker, a letter really, professing her willingness to help me find god. she penned this letter complete with the repeated botched spelling of 'bibble'. she wanted me to attend bibble school with her so that i may be saved from my miserable godless existence.
i wonder if this girl had told her family about me and they recommended this outreach, or if she had committed this act of charity on her own. this girl had never spoken to me and we had no classes together. i know it was just eighth grade, but it still amazes me how much people determine from looks alone. she had no idea what was going on at my house. i could have been beaten, i could have lost a loved one, i could be sharing a room with four other siblings in a one bedroom house with nothing to eat, i could have a fatal disease. i could have even been seeking solace through the same god she calls on, for all she knows. in reality, i had a selfish, sexually graphic mother who used money to make up for her failings at parenting, a father who's ability to function in the world was starting to disintegrate and thus tried to tighten his hold on his children, and myself, who's freakishly early puberty had convinced me i was the ugliest, most awkward waste of space that ever existed. there was a semblance of faith/spirituality in me at the time, but my teen years were not about to let me explore it. i had the freedom to do whatever i wanted with my appearance, thus reflecting my state of mind to a t.
it's disgusting to form conclusions about personal opinions and faith on appearance alone. i read the letter, spelling errors spoken phonetically, to my mother and sister, who promptly picked the girl and her letter apart. i wholeheartedly joined in with my family, because this was one part of my life i knew how to blend into. i saw the unfairness of picking on her, but was so frustrated by the unfair judgments made about me that i didn't care. it felt good for my family to assure me that she was in fact the crazy one, not me. after all, i spent 8 hours a day in a place where i felt picked apart. all eyes criticized. a place where my art teacher snubbed me because she was jealous of my artistic ability. even if i did something right, it was apparently so right it was wrong. i was never meant to fit in. and i never have.
bibble girl and i were probably more similar than anyone else in that school. both social outcasts, perceived as freaks. the difference between me and her was that she used her inherited beliefs to try and (albeit misguidedly) help, whereas i used my inherited beliefs to hurt. who really takes the high road here?
i only spent one semester at robious, and i did make one (atheist) friend who i am still vaguely friends with now. i finished the year doing 'homeschool'... i.e. nursing my teenage depression before heading to open high the next year.
since then, we've all learned how to create our appearances to reflect our beliefs and moods. some of us think really hard about how to do that, to others it comes more naturally. it doesn't really matter what you do, because you'll always be judged. no matter how polite someone is, there is always the insecure teen somewhere in there, picking you apart before you can get to them. the difference between then and now? i used to care. now i still care, and it's bullshit if anyone ever says they don't. but now i know that what i'm projecting is really me. judge all you want.
i hope bibble girl has found herself, whether that includes god or not. she didn't help me the way she intended, but all was not lost.
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