The first day of eighth grade: “Now, everybody who would rather talk about things than people, remain standing.”

Everyone sat except for my table of four.

There were stares, ones that followed me through years of adolescence. Heck, even in eighth grade I wore black for the mystery.

Allow me to back up a bit. I have an impressive track record of being myself, as off-putting to others as that must be. By the eighth grade I knew this. It was two years prior that I realized my individuality. The dreaded sixth grade. A middle school staple. For me, that year was a staple in the eye. Or rather, perhaps, the ripping of a staple from the eye--but I am rambling. This is how I saw it...

8:00 a.m.

“Emily, you wear knee socks with shorts?”

“Yes...”

“Oh.” Girl One’s nose crinkled. Girl Two’s eyebrows went up. “I mean, knee socks are cool, but I wouldn’t wear them with shorts. I would wear them with pants or something, so no one could see.” People could definitely see me.

“Oh! Well, I mean, I wear them with shorts... Especially with these boots, because my ankles will chafe if I don’t.” Their shared look of disgust at the word chafe was almost comical.

One and Two walked away from me.

Sixth grade has blended in my memory into a single day. One long, hellish, pubescent day. The day that everything went wrong, but for the eventual best. The above moment, 8:00 a.m, was the morning bell of that day.

If the sixth grade was a day, then it took me an hour to seek out a fellow person. It happened that he was a male. I was eleven, new to acne, with maybe a hint of breasts. I’ve always been a little green, but crushes especially didn’t hit me then, much less sexual drive--that I was aware of, at least. Even so, I wouldn’t have felt anything purple or squishy for this fellow person.

9:00 a.m.

“Hey, Kevin, you got yourself a girlfriend?”

“What?”

A snickering of laughter ensued. The same boys that would play football and flip me off a few years later when I held up a sign for my marching band’s car wash. A girl who liked to tell people she stuffed toilet paper in her bra quickly latched onto this misinformation.

10:00 a.m.

“Are you two dating?” Some other gem asked me.

“No.”

“Then you need to stop hanging out with him.”

“I do?”

“Yes. Everyone thinks you’re dating.”

“That’s silly.”

“Well, everyone thinks it, so you need to stop hanging out with him.”

I was a patch in the fabric of time. I felt a critical eye on me.

11:00 a.m.

“You play video games?” Bra girl asked my friend.

“Yeah.”

“Nerd!”

Oh yes, God forbid someone do what they like, Bra girl. The only acceptable game is dominoes: knocking all the others down until there are none left standing.

12:00 p.m.

“What is that?” A very popular boy asked me. Everyone liked him because he was very popular. He didn’t like me because he was very popular. 

“It’s a Zune.”

“Does it have apps?”

“Um, sure.”

“So it’s like an iPod, but not as good.”

“I-”

“What’s that Japanese crap on the back?”

“Um-”

“And that stupid rose?”

“I wouldn’t want to be popular,” I blurted. “It’s a lot of pressure.”

“It’s not pressure.” Dark eyes tipped at me in such a way that belittled my brain. I backed into my house of books.

1:00 p.m.

“You guys are party poopers,” the same boy said to me and my fellow person. It was a minute-before-winter-break class party. Really, the intermediate school teachers just didn’t want to teach that close to break. Honestly, with baskets full of preteens discovering their hormones, all waiting to text each other with privates buzzing as much as their new cell phones, I wouldn’t either.

“They are partying in their own way,” my teacher defended us. We were drawing and reading at our desks. The “in” crowd made a Satanist circle of cell phones and pre-grinding moves. Kidding, it wasn’t a Satanist circle. Even then I knew one when I saw one.

“Yes, they are. They aren’t over dancing with us.”

And you never thought that perhaps we weren’t welcome, Mister Popular? Because we did. No, no, it was a battle that could not be won on our side.

“Will said that you’re ugly.” I can’t recall this speaker; perhaps there were multiple. “And people laugh at you. They don’t like you. You should start hanging out with the popular kids.”

But I was a girl who liked to talk about things, not people. This was a people battle... And I guess I wasn’t a proper people.

2:00 p.m.

“Emily, why’d you switch classes?”

“My parents made me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

The kid was disappointed that he didn’t have any new information to spread. My parents told me to give any prying mouths the above answer, so as to avoid the exhaustion of explaining the teaching issue with my math teacher and the incessant teasing bred in that particular blend of students.

But here’s the thing: I didn’t change in that one day. Even after 3:00 p.m, when the closing bell rang, I still wore my knee socks, converse, and funky hats. A day of stares punctured my self-esteem, to be sure, but barely scraped my individuality. There was a critical eye that could see me: my own. And that was all that mattered.
I am a girl who likes to talk about things, not people. And I’m still standing.