Day 8: Someone who has made your life hell or treated you badly

I could refer back to day 4, but I decided that that I didn’t want to give them any more energy.

This going to sound stupid.. but there was this girl in middle school and high school…

I was never a really popular kid. Oh I had plenty of friends, but I wasn’t in “The In Group” of pretty, popular girls with designer jeans and makeup – none of which I was allowed by my parents to partake of. I had friends in the group but I wasn’t part of the group… know what I mean?

This particular girl was probably one of the most popular members of the group and I admired her for her perfect hair – it was the early 80’s and everyone had big hair. There was more than one occasion when I went out to back to school shopping when I tried to find an outfit similar to one that popular girl wore. But at the time, it was almost impossible for a chubby girl shopping at Sears or JC Penney to look like a skinny girl who shopped at a fancy department store.

We chugged along merrily until one day in the 8th grade when I passed her in the hall, dressed in my knock-off designer duds, when popular girl decided to point out to everyone within hearing distance that I had bought my entire outfit at KMart.

Now, I can look back and realize that she could only know what outfits were possible from a discount store if she’d actually shopped there herself.. but at the time, I was mortified beyond belief.

This was at the beginning of the school year and I had almost every class with popular girl and she seemed to take great delight in tormenting me about my clothing and hair for the remainder of the school year. One of her mean girl friends liked to do this too, but the sting was really from popular girl.

High school came and I got busy and she and I were in very few classes together but the comments really didn’t stop. They got more infrequent but they didn’t hurt any less.

It’s been almost 30 years and the sting is still there.