Ad Nauseum.
So, I don't want to write about "The Ricker" today, but I'll tell you what he did.
I was 11 when I was in 8th grade. Ugly, flat, awkward. And 11. Ricky and his twin, Pristine were 13 or so, and very popular. Popular kids prey on what is different. I was FREAKY different. But Ricky was cute, so I tolerated his assholeness.
We had chinese class together for three years, into our sophomore year. During that time, I grew up and out a little (A cups, at least, woo hoo!), and grew some independence. I didn't try quite so hard to have everyone like me, as much.
We went to the ballet when we were sophomores, as part of our Chinese class (I don't remember the correlation). I dressed up. Put on a bra, a black dress, and tied a pretty scarf in my hair. I wanted to look feminine. Ricky noticed.
He backed me into a corner. Put his nose in that space where my neck and my shoulder met, and told me I looked beautiful. He put his face close to mine, said he wanted to kiss me. I was breathless, scared. At 13, I was still the ugly duckling among my friends. The little sister. I hugged them every day, as tight as I could, but it was anything but sexual.
This, this was predatory, meant to initimidate. He ran his fingers right down the curve of my waist, let it hang there - knowing full well that his friends Zac and Yung Ho were standing behind him, laughing their asses off because he was making the little girl scared.
I was terrified. The older part of me wanted this attention to be earned and in earnest for the woman that I was becoming but his sneer told me that it wasn't.
Once he saw how nervous he made me, he never let me forget it. It was a game to him. I was a game to him.
Stupidly, I asked him to sign my yearbook, hoping in my naivete that he would write something like, "Keep Smiling," or whatever in the hell it is that kids write in each other's yearbooks.
He didn't.
He wrote about giving me orgasms and filling me up until I overflowed.
Words that made me feel small every time I read them. I wonder how I would feel if I read them now, but part of me is happy that Momma's got the attic stacked so high with boxes. I couldn't find them if I tried.
I was 11 when I was in 8th grade. Ugly, flat, awkward. And 11. Ricky and his twin, Pristine were 13 or so, and very popular. Popular kids prey on what is different. I was FREAKY different. But Ricky was cute, so I tolerated his assholeness.
We had chinese class together for three years, into our sophomore year. During that time, I grew up and out a little (A cups, at least, woo hoo!), and grew some independence. I didn't try quite so hard to have everyone like me, as much.
We went to the ballet when we were sophomores, as part of our Chinese class (I don't remember the correlation). I dressed up. Put on a bra, a black dress, and tied a pretty scarf in my hair. I wanted to look feminine. Ricky noticed.
He backed me into a corner. Put his nose in that space where my neck and my shoulder met, and told me I looked beautiful. He put his face close to mine, said he wanted to kiss me. I was breathless, scared. At 13, I was still the ugly duckling among my friends. The little sister. I hugged them every day, as tight as I could, but it was anything but sexual.
This, this was predatory, meant to initimidate. He ran his fingers right down the curve of my waist, let it hang there - knowing full well that his friends Zac and Yung Ho were standing behind him, laughing their asses off because he was making the little girl scared.
I was terrified. The older part of me wanted this attention to be earned and in earnest for the woman that I was becoming but his sneer told me that it wasn't.
Once he saw how nervous he made me, he never let me forget it. It was a game to him. I was a game to him.
Stupidly, I asked him to sign my yearbook, hoping in my naivete that he would write something like, "Keep Smiling," or whatever in the hell it is that kids write in each other's yearbooks.
He didn't.
He wrote about giving me orgasms and filling me up until I overflowed.
Words that made me feel small every time I read them. I wonder how I would feel if I read them now, but part of me is happy that Momma's got the attic stacked so high with boxes. I couldn't find them if I tried.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 at 2:29 PM.
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Do you ever feel like being so far ahead in school "damaged" you? I mean I am just looking from the outside but it seems like since you were always younger you had to work extra hard to be accepted and maybe that is where your need to always feel accepted came from.
J,
I feel like that every day. And, looking back on my first "loves", I was never "enough" for them - they always left me, one by one. The gracious letdown, you know? Maybe it's that. I always tried to swallow it because I don't want to be on Jenny Jones re: I was a dud, but now I'm a STUD! I should just be able to let go of it, right?
It sounds like you're trying to heal yourself. Keep going down that road, don't let them win by re-living all the moments you felt small in comparison.
Its tough, I know! But you can do it.
Hugs & Kisses
Gosh, being in middle school is hard. Must've been even harder to be younger. I looked younger (I looked like a little girl until I was about 16, so even though I was the same age as my classmates, I didn't necessarily feel it) which was hard.
It's also amazing how people can damage other people. I know I've said things to other kids in school that I completely and totally regret. I wish I could tell them that. I'd like to think they don't remember, but I know they probably do.
C -
I'm TRYING to heal myself. I don't know what else to do besides reflection and introspection. I'm worried that I'll be that girl that can't let it go, but I'm trying to figure out WHY these things bother me, too. I'd like to say I'm not wallowing, but...
G -
Middle school was hell. And even now, that I work with kids in that age group, I can see that it is hell for them, too.
I know I said damaging things, too, and I feel awful about it. I am HOPING that I was not predatory, though. Hoping and Praying.
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