Alright, listen up here kiddos because mama’s fired up. People are not one dimensional. I’m going to say it again for those in the back who didn’t hear. PEOPLE ARE NOT ONE DIMENSIONAL.
Just because I am nice, I sit there quietly in class and I laugh at all your jokes does not mean I am ditsy, soft, "not the sharpest tool in the shed" or any other f*cking thing anyone has ever called me.
Fact of the matter: I can laugh at your jokes now, but as soon as you piss me off, you’re gone. Good luck. I may seem ditsy now, but just wait until I am spitting in your face, talking at you like you’re a 4-year-old, relaying all of the demeaning things you have said to me within the last four months.
Fun fact: I may seem soft now, but if you only knew what has happened to me in the past and the shit that I’ve had to deal with, you’d realize I am not soft.
The nice, soft, quirky girl you see now has not always been me.
When I look back at my life I see something very different. Let me share.
10 years old: trying to pull out beer glass shards imbedded in the wall.
11 years old: trying to convince my parents it wasn’t me who was failing math, it was the teacher
12 years old: working extra hard to get back into advanced math
12 years old: getting called "fat"
13 years old: being made fun of because of my clothes (hand-me-downs from my brothers)
13 years old: on the free and reduced lunch & book rental program
14 years old: seeing cancer take a loved one
14 years old: seeing someone almost beat cancer, die of a heart attack the day after stem cells accepted
14 years old: threatened to be raped
14 years old: called "intimidating"
15 years old: crying over a folded American flag
15 years old: being called "undetermined" by my coach
15 years old: being told I could quit the team or become manager
15 years old: quitting cross country
15 years old: diagnosed with anxiety
15 years old: called "intimidating"
16 years old: hating myself
16 years old: hating my body
16 years old: start to lift weights
16 years old: being made fun of for not having a smartphone
16 years old: called "intimidating"
17 years old: loving myself
17 years old: lifting every day at 4:00 a.m., so I can go to school and work after that.
17 years old: being made fun of because "I hate my life"
17 years old: being made fun of because "I don’t have tear ducts"
17 years old: the guy that threatened to rape me moves into a house down the street
17 years old: sleeping with a knife under my pillow every night
17 years old: called "intimidating"
18 years old: ending a life-long friendship
18 years old: moving from Indiana to New York
18 years old: told I can’t do the major I want to
18 years old: called "soft"
18 years old: called "not the sharpest tool in the shed"
18 years old: enough.
Let me make this clear. I am soft. I am soft on the outside. But let me tell you what. The first thing I hear about you ridiculing me, or anyone else I care about, this open book will shut faster than a bear trap.
I’m soft on the outside, but you make me mad and my outside burns to a crisp.
This is how people are. This is how everyone is. There are many, MANY levels to everyone.
You can’t sit there and generalize somebody because of surface qualities. You can’t sit there and generalize somebody because of their opinions, their mannerisms, their accents, their skin color, their ethnicity, their culture, anything. Because there is so much more to people than that. It's very important, especially at this volatile time, to consider others' experiences and the ways their lives have developed for them.
My story is not unique. So before you make some snide comment about how someone is "soft" or "hard" or "doesn’t have tear ducts," think twice.
Oh, and be careful what you wish for because I've dealt with a lot of worse things than some kid with a loud mouth.
