When I Was A Kid

I Was An Ugly Duckling.

When I was a little girl, I thought I was the ugliest thing ever. I had stringy brown hair, and a fat little body. I started putting on weight when I entered puberty, and that is when the name calling began. Pretty much any name to describe a fat animal has been attributed to me, for example, piglet, hippo, elephant, buffalo butt and so on. There was this horrible boy who called me blubber butt all through grade school.

For some reason in Jr. High I had a reprieve from most of the name calling. Most likely it was the strategy for survival in the Jr. High I went to, it was about avoiding getting your butt kicked, by talking a sufficient amount of crap to make the more aggressive kids look for an easier target, and not appearing an easy victim. I think in Jr. High, my size was actually to my benefit because I would have been hard to conquer. Of course there were bigger, and most definitely meaner girls, luckily, most of them had taken a liking to me, and left me alone.

In Jr. High I was truly afraid of the other kids. I had seen groups of kids surround and bully the weaker kids. I somehow figured out how to be invisible, or at least mysterious enough to be left alone, except in 7th grade when this one particular girl made my life a living hell when she threatened to beat up my friend and I almost every single day. I should have had a clue that she was all talk and no action, but at that age I spent most of my time asking myself, "is this the day she is going to actually kick my ass?" She moved at the end of the year. My friend and I were so relieved. The rest of the tour of Jr. High was a lot less scary.

So back to me being an ugly kid. It was about Jr. High that the kids started forming those little relationships. We called it "going together." Of course, no boy wanted to be seen within 10 feet of a fat girl like me, and as a young teen this was disheartening. I cried to my mom, no boys like me, I'm fat and ugly.

Of course she disagreed, but I would not hear it. That is not what I had been told by all of the other kids, and what did mom know anyway? She was my mom, obviously she wouldn't tell me the truth of how ugly I was. I think my mother sensed this kink in my logic, and she decided to tell me a story. She said, "I went to school with a girl who was overweight, she thought no man would ever love her, but when she grew up she ended up meeting the most wonderful AND handsome man, and they got married because he loved her for her inner beauty and I think that is what is going to happen for you."

All of those years going through school and having barely any boys at all so much as give me a glance I kept that in mind. I just knew some day a wonderful and handsome man was going to fall in love with me, and I with him, and we would get married and have babies and live happily ever after. And you know what? My mom was totally and completely right in everything she said, and I think the girl she described was herself, and she knew it would happen for me too.

I married a wonderful and handsome man, who I went to Jr. High and grade school with ironically enough. I can't think of any man in my life who has ever been, or ever would be more dedicated to me. Life is sweet sometimes.

I'm still fat. Fatter than I would like to be. I don't think I am the ugliest woman alive any more, but I could stand to lose some weight. This is for my daughter who is not fat or ugly, but because I want her to know that no matter what anyone says about you, there is always someone out there who will disagree.