Decade #2--Strong

I've been thinking a lot recently about how I've evolved over the last 42 years, and this week I'm going to delve into my life and what has created who I am.

A few years ago I posted about my sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Tickner--how he changed my view of myself and how it was okay to be a smart girl in the world. I needed him that year, because 1981 wasn't only the year Reagan got inaugurated and almost assassinated--it was the year that I became a target and discovered that kids are cruel.

Bullying has been in the news a lot lately, mostly because the painful consequences of suicide or fighting back have been so dramatic. But bullying is not new--it's as old as childhood and as prolific as dandelions in summer.

I was bullied.

Sixth grade is when the bullying began in earnest--while I was walking along the fence waiting for the school bus, two boys removed my lunch from my lunch box and replaced it with dog food. I discovered their exchange (and its implication about my looks) on the bus just moments later, as everyone around laughed. Sounds a bit like a Judy Blume book, doesn't it? I wish it had been. This was just the beginning.

From shoves in the hallway to bras strung up in the locker room, I somehow became a target of ridicule. I would try to find a place where I fit, where I was accepted, but I bounced from group to group, never lasting more than a few weeks with one circle of friends. I don't know if there have been any studies conducted that analyze and explain why some kids become bullies and some become targets, and I don't really care.

I didn't feel like I was that different from everyone else. I wasn't tall or short. I wasn't fat. I did wear homemade clothes, which hadn't even fazed me until I turned thirteen and I realized that Izod lacoste polo shirts, Levis 501s and Sperry topsiders were what you should be wearing. I was now titled "spazzy," and although that moniker didn't bother me, somewhere inside me I felt it should. My ninth grade class voted me "most obnoxious," and for some reason I wore it like a badge of honor instead of derision.

I had always been verbally assaulted (with a last name like Tucker it only took the kids the first week of first grade to figure out what Tucker rhymes with--I'd never heard that word, but I could tell by the way they used it, it was really bad), but it became worse. Someone wrote, "Have you told your parents you're pregnant yet?" in my eighth grade yearbook. I wish that was the worst one, but it's not.

The Monday after my dream date to my junior-year Sweetheart Ball, I went into the main girls' bathroom to find these words scrawled in red on the wall above the mirror: "Jenny Tucker lost her virginity on January 27, 1986." That one almost sent me home for the day.

No matter what they threw at me, I refused to let it affect me or what I thought of myself. I would not be Severus Snape snivelling in the corner, victim of the popular crowd, becoming more and more bitter as the days passed. I tried out for cheerleader twice in junior high, losing both times because cheerleading at my school was by majority vote of the student body. I ran for class officer twice, once in ninth grade and again as a senior, never winning. Even though it could bring more teasing, I worked in the school lunch room since my parents couldn't afford school lunch, thus avoiding the drama always associated with finding a table and people to sit with during the lunch hour.

Maybe the most humiliating day of my life--I wore a shirt to school that snapped up the front. Somehow the boys in the class were discussing bra sizes (this was high school. I know, ew), and Bruce, one of the boys on my street who had four years earlier replaced my lunch with dog food, said, "Hm, I wonder what size Jenny's bra is?" and with that, he grabbed both sides of my collar and with one quick pull, he unsnapped it from top to bottom. Where was the teacher? Where was justice? Neither was on my side that day.

Not one to be cowed, I still spoke up in class, still spoke my mind. I got great but not stellar grades because first was always more important to me than right. I found classes where I could shine--first choir, and when that didn't work the way I thought it would, I turned to debate and extemporaneous speaking. I traveled to tournaments and competitions, always staying busy but never really fitting in with these groups enough to be invited to their activities outside of school. I worked part-time and made money for life after high school. I knew there had to be one, right?

What always kept me grounded was my family. I had parents that attended as many of my games and competitions and recitals as they could. I knew that even though I somehow wasn't okay in society, I was a star in their eyes, and I  knew that. They loved me no matter what, and I relied on it.

When I graduated from high school, I was voted "most opinionated," and somehow it felt like my stance on the abuse had been validated. I had been who I was, never backing down for a second from what I believed to be true and or apologizing for who I knew I was inside. I left for BYU without a single roommate I knew, abandoning my childhood and hometown for a new life, one I hoped would accept me.

My first day at BYU was not what I had expected.

None of my five roommates had arrived yet and wouldn't for at least two days. I was alone. A place that I was familiar with. I had scheduled to attend an honor's student conference and I dressed and walked from my empty corner of campus to the Maeser building, home of the honors' program. Here I was greeted by a surprise--acceptance. Not once that year was I alone when I didn't want to be. I had roommates who took a hyper, loud freshman under their sophomore wings and loved me like one of them. I had a job that even though it required me to arise at 3:30  am Monday-Saturday, it paid my bills.

Most of all, I had freedom--freedom from scorn, freedom from ridicule, freedom from the misconceptions and stereotypes of others.

I was strong. And I wasn't going to let anyone hurt me again.