Remembering childhood should bring fond memories and warm, fuzzy feelings. Not in my case. I remember tearful sprints from the bus stop and frequent trips to the guidance counselor. With my slim stature, narrow face, and big brown eyes, one might think I’d be popular or at least confident. Instead, I was bullied. Who knew having big eyes would be such a nuisance? From kindergarten to the middle of sixth grade, I was a crybaby turned fighter, taking on the boys, and yelling back at teachers. The principal, Mrs. Harwood, was pretty much my best friend. It even got to the point where I sat in her office so long that she would re-braid my hair. “What’d you do today, Latrice? Who said something bad to you?” she would ask. “Nothing. Mrs. Chernovsky is lying on me!” I thought I had it under control. If I fought back, I would never be hurt.
I moved to St. Croix of the U.S. Virgin Islands just shy of my twelfth birthday. I believed that to be the dumbest thing my mother had ever done. Now, at almost thirty, I love going back home but you could not tell me different then. What made it even worse was that I did not have a choice. Now, I have the rancid memories of being bullied and an accent I could hardly mask. I was uprooted from the only life I knew as a tough city girl in New York. The islands weren’t the greatest though people say, “But, you get to go to the beach every day and it’s never cold!” That was far from the truth, of course. Wearing a school uniform in 80-90-degree weather was less than favorable, but I do commend the island breeze. I continued the remainder of sixth grade, junior high and high school in St. Croix. I remember the sixth grade not being too bad, but that’s relative. I pissed myself in the middle of math class because Mr. White didn’t allow me to go to the bathroom. I was told to go to the custodian’s closet for a mop and on my way there, slipped in mud, got it all over my skirt, and kindergarteners laughed at me. Nice. Why do kids have to ask to use the bathroom, anyway? Who did teachers think they were saying no? Being teased for my ‘yankee’ accent and being stuck up because I was from New York were the least of my worries. It is when I got to Elena Christian Junior High School that things got way out of hand.
As a preteen, I had body issues and insecurities about my looks as any other young girl would. I always felt I wasn’t pretty enough and often compared myself to characters on TV. You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t one of the Cheetah Girls. There was one girl I idolized from a Disney short I watched over and over. She was tan skinned, with a long curly ponytail and slanted eyes. She loved playing tennis with her father and brother. I convinced myself that life would be so much easier if I looked like her. As if my self-esteem wasn’t low enough:
“Why are your eyes so big?”
“You look like a frog!”
“Socket!”
“Are your eyes falling out of your head? Let me catch them.”
“You look malnourished.”
“Girls from New York can’t be that ugly.”
I’ve heard it all. I would go home crying every day. It didn’t help either that my mother lacked emotional intelligence, but that’s another story. It got to the point where the bullying became physical. I was in seventh period gym sitting with two friends. There were a group of girls sitting at the top of the bleachers trying to get my attention. “Socket! Socket!” I didn’t look back, trying to ignore them until I was hit in the face with a half-filled soda can. Soda splattered on the back of my mustard yellow uniform shirt. My face stung. “Ouch!” The girls roared in laughter. I shook in embarrassment as the urge to cry filled my face. I turned away as if nothing happened, so did my ‘friends’.
As the bell rung, I sped to the school bus anxious to get home. On the second step of the bus, I was pulled off by my backpack and almost thrown to the floor so that one of the girls could get on first. Only the seats at the back of the bus were left. Let’s just say there was always a reason to sit at the front. Unfortunately, I was two rows away from where they all sat. It was weird that there wasn’t much conversation going on. Normally, ten kids would be talking over one another and laughing at three different jokes. Instead, it was quiet. SLAP. From behind, I was struck in the face with a leather belt. Everyone started laughing wildly, causing the bus driver to look up into the rearview mirror. She did nothing. I was just grateful that my glasses didn’t break. When we got to the final stop in my neighborhood, I stormed off the bus. The tears began to flow. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. One girl even followed me up the hill towards my house, throwing paper. I continued walking.
Who was I? I used to fight! I used to talk back! My mother and uncle went to the school and the homes of some of the kids. The physical bullying stopped. We did live on a small island so practically everyone knew each other. My uncle was well known in most areas and because most thought he was my dad, everything eased up a bit though I was still verbally bullied. What fueled them was the fact that I told. I struggled to fit in and keep friends which in turn affected me socially. I resorted to making up friends and boyfriends to impress classmates and even the one friend I still had in New York. The jig was up when she asked for pictures. By the time I graduated and moved on to high school, I had no one.
At St. Croix Central High School, it all stopped. No one bullied me anymore. I thought maybe with age I got prettier, but then I realized going to high school meant getting into new crowds and ‘maturing’. No one cared to look at me anymore. It was strange. Were they really maturing? I highly doubted that but the burden was finally lifted until I got rejected by almost every single crush I ever had. “She (looks) alright, but no.” said one of them. Up close, he wasn’t even that cute anyway. I eventually had my first boyfriend, well, the second if you count the one who got left back in the eighth grade, had my best friend Joilah, and gained a bit of popularity. People knew my name, that I was a writer, and did my own nails. It was different, but deep down, I was still that bruised, insecure girl.
It took me twelve years to finally look in the mirror and not only see but believe that there was a beautiful girl standing there. I think I’ve grown into my eyes and filled out my slim stature well. Revisiting my childhood is not easy. I may still be holding a grudge. I still curse my first pair of glasses that barely fit my face and looked like bifocals. And the fact that I wore bubbles, clips, and matching outfits with my younger sister until I was thirteen. And the many times I could have just socked someone in the mouth for bullying me. I can’t believe I was such a punk! Where did the tough New York girl go? You know? What is refreshing about it all is half of those people have no college degrees, a heap of children, and probably work for little to nothing. Alright. So, I shouldn’t be proud of others’ misfortunes but hey, at least the big-eyed, skinny girl has got something going!
Til the Disney channel wand flies,
Ella.
The Daily Ella 