I didn't get bullied in high school. No one pushed me around or told me things to make me feel bad about myself, and for that, I was rather lucky. I was never personally attacked for the things I was, but people often thought they could dictate the things I would or wouldn't be. For example, someone thought I wouldn't qualify for the Gates Millennium Scholarship; someone else implied that I had gotten into college just because I was a Mexican female. (#AffirmativeAction, anyone?) Someone even went as far as to question whether I deserved to be at the top of my class.
I wasn't bullied when I was in high school, but left and right people questioned whether I'd make my dreams come true and whether I even deserved to see them come to fruition. It made me question myself, and this, in turn, drove me to working endless nights and long, tiring days — trying to earn the trust and faith of a community. I like to believe I did a good job of it; I like to believe that I made some damn good lemonade out of the lemons that life gave me and that in doing so, I helped inspire some sort of hope in my community. At the end of the day, that's all I want — to show that it's possible, despite the harrowing odds, to make it out alive. At the end of the day, I think that's what we all want: a success story.
Allow me to share what I think sums up mine.
When I was in high school, I did MCJROTC. I was the second in command of 150 cadets, and my twin sister was the first, which was a lot more fun than I can say. While being in command spared me a lot of the bullying, it didn't stop the talking, and one day I received news that one of my cadets had been particularly vocal about her opinions of me. In some messages to one of our officers, she called me — and I quote — "A freak, a weirdo, a lesbian Jimmy Neutron." At the time, it was painful to hear: not once in my life had it crossed my mind that this cadet had such ugly feelings about me. It was hurtful. I didn't cry, but I felt my skin go warm, and I know I remembered it for months afterward. I mean, I still remember it now.
Looking back, I think the words were so hurtful because I wanted to be an inspiration, not the punchline to a really bad joke. At the time of the incident, I wasn't yet such a huge LGBT+ advocate, I wasn't as vocal about mental health as I am now, I wasn't trying to spark discussions on privilege or helping to share knowledge with the Latinx community. I was a young girl trying to familiarize myself with my horizons, and I took the incident to heart. Now I realize that the whole ordeal was worth a few good lemons, and almost two years later I can laugh at the incident and say for certain that some good came out of it.
Because it's two years later, and I've cut my hair off, come out to both friends and family, and ended up with a full ride to MIT.
The girl who said these things still roams the edges of my social media circles. I hope she hears about this story. I'm not out for vengeance now, and I wasn't out for vengeance then, but I'd like her to know that had things been any different, what she said might have been more harmful than she intended. One thing I'd like to tell her now is that I'm grateful that I get to laugh it away and say she wasn't too far off the mark. Something along the lines of "I'm not a genius like Jimmy Neutron was, but in retrospect, that's rather flattering."
No, I didn't get bullied in high school, but there were things said about me that I'm glad to have proven wrong. And there were things said about me that I'm glad to have proven right.
Plus, I got a killer tattoo that I realized doubles as a T-shirt logo. How's that for lemonade?
