Thoughts on Pre Teen Girls

Pre teens and teenage girls can be bitches.  My elementary school/junior high was so small there were only 4 or 5 other girls my age, but the pack mentality reigned even in this small circle.  One particular snowy day when the cold made it impossible to take recess outside, the students found themselves confined to the classroom.  I had just finished lunch in the cafeteria, and was rounding the hall to our classroom when I spied one of the other girls standing in the doorway of the classroom.  As soon as she saw my approach, she ran back inside.  My stomach dropped.  What new torment would I have to endure today?  

As soon as I entered the classroom, I could hear the beginning notes of Adam Ant's "Goody Two Shoes," a song I actually liked.  I could see 3 or 4 girls huddled around the cassette player, giggling and occasionally stealing glimpses in my direction.  I slinked over to my desk and took out my homework.  "You don't drink, don't smoke.  What do you do?"  The words were difficult to ignore.  I was totally uncool.

I spent more and more time alone.  I'd typically finish my homework before I even left school, during study break, or even recess.  After school, I'd walk home, eat a snack and usually draw for hours until bed time.  I had a drafting board set up in my room, and I would follow the drawing techniques from books that would illustrate step by step how to draw.  I quickly became the best artist in the class.  I also graduated eighth grade as valedictorian of my class.

But mostly I was miserable.  Mom had opened a beauty shop in town, where she would perform her specialty:  the back comb.  I was left on my own with my sister.  My days off from school were spent cleaning the house or watching Soul Train.  Sometimes we would rent a VHS player from the video store and some movies on tape.  But mostly I wanted to die.  I even contemplated killing myself one day, holding the knife in my hand and crying uncontrollably, I knew that I wouldn't be able to go through with hurting myself.  But I felt so alone and unwanted in those days that I didn't comprehend that life could be any different.

The summer before I started high school I went to stay with an old friend on her family's ranch in Mendocino.  Christine and I had first met as children when my grandparents had moved to this small mountain community.  Her family ran a church camp about a quarter mile from my grandparents house.  Later, she and I would attend the elementary school together for about a year before she and her family moved North.  I considered her my best friend, and I'd been missing her presence at the school sorely.  I spent about a month living with her and her parents and two sisters.  During the day, we would ride our bikes around the ranch, pick blackberries, or play Marco Polo with the small tractor her dad let us drive.  One day, we were driving the tractor out in the field when the entire herd of cows came running towards us.  We were so scared, we jumped off the tractor and hopped the nearest fence.  The cows were only looking to get fed, but seeing 100 or so of these beasts galloping towards us scared the crap out of us.

A.M Homes writes about her own powerful adoption reunion experience in The Mistresses' Daughter.  She writes,  "I grew up convinced that every family was better than mine."  But spending time with Christine's family, I learned that her family had their tensions as well.  Her older sister hated the confines of Christine's families' strong Christian faith, and couldn't wait to leave home.  Christine's mom struggled to maintain her independence living on her in-laws land.  I began to understand that family dynamics are not always as they seem from the outside, and that it can be a struggle to define oneself in a family even if one wasn't an outsider, as I considered myself to be within my family.  

I hated leaving Christine's family at the end of the summer, even more so because I would be starting a new school.  Even though I had few friends at the elementary school, I understood how to tolerate my tormentors and find a sort of relief through books, music and art.  The idea of high school was frightening; the school was seven times larger than my elementary school.  I'd be attending several classes during the day, rather than having one class and one teacher.  I'd have to remember a locker combination!  And I'd be spending about an hour commuting each way just to get to school.  I'd never even been to the high school, and didn't really understand what to expect.  But I knew that the change was something to cautious of; change hadn't always worked out so well in my life up to now.