If you were born in the late 90's or early 2000's, the movie "Mean Girls" is well recognized and established in your repertoire. Whether or not you are proud of it, we have all seen Lindsay Lohan take on the "Plastics" in an epic and mockable tale of high school drama and social bullying. I spent a lot of time internally chanting "small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events and great minds discuss ideas". While in high school it was only a means of comfort, a small prayer that my current struggles and displacement would lead me to something exceptional, I have finally reached the point of perspective and the end of that sh**** tunnel.
From the time I was a small child, I experienced bullying. Something seemed to always be wrong with me, and I just could not blend in. In Pre-School, my mother picked me up one day, and after getting into the car, I immediately put a towel over my head. Upon being questioned I said it was "to stop the sun from making me browner. I hated the color of my skin. I wanted that Snow White, porcelain tone that all the other girls had. I refused to get my nails painted red because I was told it was a color that only looked good on "white skin". Seems ridiculous now, considering I slay in red, but I literally, did not feel comfortable in my own skin until late middle school. This was the start of my experience as the recipient of the wrath of the mean-girls that was to be my adolescent fate.
In 6th grade, I changed schools because my family had moved and I wanted to make friends with the kids I would be going to junior high with. I lasted but six months. I was the new girl in school. These kids had gone to school together since pre-k, their moms were on the PTA together, they attended church and weekly activities together as members of the same ward (it's a Mormon thing). Oh, I forgot to mention, they were all members of the Mormon church and I was very clearly and apparently unacceptably not. School started out great, I got a lot of attention for being new. I played soccer with the guys at recess because the girls didn't seem to like me much, but I didn't mind. I ran for school president against the most popular guy in school and won. This was my utter downfall. The kids in my class went ballistic. They made up stories about me cheating, swearing at them outside on the playground and bullying them. This was all, of course, untrue but not even the principal believed me. After all, I didn't wear a white t-shirt under my tank tops and my mom was NOT on the PTA. So I left.
Whoever thought "Mean Girls" was a hilarious exaggeration of the ever so awkward time of high school, probably didn’t actually attend high school. At least nothing resembling the high school experience that I had. This is in NO way a criticism of the school. The institution itself was incredible and I owe so much of my present success to the community and faculty there. That said, socially, the mean girls were alive and well in those hallowed halls. I spent all of high school wondering "why me?". "What is so f******* special about me that you all feel the need to make my life a special kind of hell. Turns out, I am special. I am so special that each and every one of these small-minded mean girls felt the need to put me down in order to feel better about their own selves. It's funny to me now, to think about how bored they must have been with their own lives in order to find such fascination with mine. So here it is, my little letter to all you mean girls from back home:
Thank you. Truly, I mean it, thank you. Without your petty bs drama, I would not be half the woman I am today; kicking ass and taking names. I would not be as incredibly happy and successful as I am today. For your shallow attempts at making me feel lesser about myself, to all of you who exploited my most painful weaknesses after my heart had been shattered for the first time, to those who tried to edge me out of dance, or soccer, or the musical, who accused me of things I never did, thank you. While I am not sorry that I did not want to blend, to talk about people; who hooked up with whom, why she is mad at her, who has fallen from good grace today, I am sorry that you felt so insecure about yourselves that you found enjoyment in causing me pain. I am sorry that your insecurity was so great that you could only manage it by punishing me for being who I was, who I am.
Yes, who I am. That's the best part. I sit here writing this article 100% comfortable with myself, my abilities, where I stand today and where I will be 10 years from now. I have a superpower, one that you all saw in me when I didn’t see it in myself and I think you were afraid of it, threatened by it and so you resented me for it. I create my reality. I have the ability to manifest for myself whatever it is that I may need or want from life. I am bold. I am intelligent. I am insightful and this has allowed me to make connections with some of the most successful business leaders in the nation. I was amazed to find that I impressed them even, with just one conversation. I am charismatic and bubbly. I am a talented athlete and dancer. I am musically and artistically inclined. I create happiness and love in all that exists around me. I have the most incredible family, boyfriend, and friends. Yes, I said friends, friends that are girls. As it turns out, despite my fears and despite the way your treatment made me feel, there is nothing wrong with me. I have not an ounce of drama here at college. I did not need a sorority to create my own sisterhood, I have an army of women who all love and celebrate me for who I am.
A part of me wishes that I could have discovered this superpower of mine in high school, my life would have been a hell of a lot easier! But I truly to believe that it was all the mean girls back home, each and every one, that pushed me to find my inner power and that made this success taste so sweet. So, to any of you other girls or women out there who feel like a target has been etched on your back, any of you constant receivers of the dreaded mean girl syndrome, keep your chin up. You have a superpower all on your own and one day you will reap the greatest reward of all: irrefutable and unconditional happiness.
