I have always felt like I was on the outside looking in.

I was the weird girl in class. I had no hygiene skills, no confidence, and a speech impediment. I was the bully’s dream girl. I was made to be made fun of…or so it seemed.

It wasn’t until fifth grade that I realized that I was not made to be fun of but for something ultimately so much more.
It was fifth grade when I figured out hygiene, or the basics of it. We were lining up to head who-knows-where when I went to brush my hair out of my face and my hand firmly planted itself in my nest I called hair. I had a knot the size of a softball. I was sure everyone could see. Who couldn’t? This was the day when I realized that I never wanted to feel so completely ugly again. I tried to brush my teeth more often but really, by fifth grade, the damage is already done. I brushed my hair, especially in the back. I did my laundry even though it hurt to hold myself on the washer (I was too short to do laundry any other way). My hygiene was not going to be a reason people made fun of me. Never again.

It was fifth grade when I figured out the people I thought were my friends, weren’t. Looking back it is embarrassing how I followed them around and obeyed their orders. They didn’t like me and ditched me whenever they could. For a specific example, my fifth grade class got to eat outside on the patio one day. They sat a table with “cooler” people than me. I sat alone. It wasn’t until a group of wallflowers invited me to sit with them that I realized I could never make them like me. I was nothing to them and from then on out, they were nothing to me.

The wabbit wan awound the stweet. R’s were the bane of my existence. I had been in speech since kindergarten successfully working my way through the alphabet but the letter R seemed to elude me. There is a string attached to every tongue called the frenulum and mine was too short. My speech teacher explained that if I could not correct my R’s on my own then my frenulum would have to be clipped. Apparently, this does not hurt but I was terrified. I worked hard the entire year so that I would not have to clip my frenulum. Eventually, I succeeded but only after of year “special treatment,” as my classmates would say. To attend my speech meetings I would have to leave for thirty minutes during the school day a few times a week. My classmates were jealous of this and often made rude comments. It was fifth grade when first begun to be determined to never be a victim again due to my speech impediment.

It’s clear, I was made to made fun of.

This is what people would have me think. This is what I thought for years. I was too ugly, too weak, too poor, too ignorant, and much too unwanted. I could not be loved. I could not be helped. I could not be seen.

I was wrong.

I am in college now to become a social worker. I am no longer ashamed but proud. I will one day help those who are helpless. Love those who are thought to be unlovable. I will make the invisible, visible. I was not made to be made fun of. Instead, I was beautifully and fearfully made.