I Must Keep Fighting

       

   
       So this summer, I learned who I'm supposed to be... or better yet, how and why I came to be and the importance of the constant life lessons. And now, I feel like an idiot thinking back to the person I had wanted to become before I realized what great expectations lie ahead.

        My life has been a series of trials used to push me to the point of breaking. Not like glass exactly, I wasn't built that way. Well, physically anyway. I've never been dainty or tiny which to be completely honest used to bother me a lot but that was until the trials came and I was put to the test. I figured out the hard way that small and cute wasn't going to win the constant battles. I wasn't born that way. I am stubborn and chaotic and nothing near tiny and fragile. Why? because weakness isn't part of this life. With every fall I've got to get up with scraped knees, bruised ribs, and bleeding knuckles because even when hit with everything the universe had- my bones never broke. Not even once. And it took me about 18 years to realize what I should have been grateful for in the beginning.

       I wasn't built like a delicate flower who would lamely lose its petals to the freakin' wind like some metaphor in a mediocre sappy love novel, no, I was built like an ox and a damn right scary one! I used to think being stubborn was my biggest flaw and my big bones an even bigger flaw until my parents showed me these two simple little things can put so much power into my hands figuratively speaking and literally. But even then I'm still learning to love myself everyday; I've got days when I'd wish I was this small scared little thing but then I get the ever so often smack down that there's a good reason for that. I guess the universe just needed to be a harsh when it came to its parenting because it hurt like a motherfucker every time I was thrown down, embarrassed, emotionally scarred, and all that good stuff. But I learned about myself. I learned things I wouldn't have even noticed about myself if i hadn't grown up that way.

       See, I always questioned 'why me?' whenever something truly hurtful happened to me. My entire middle school memory consists of constant embarrassments, painful realizations, discoveries that no one else seemed to notice? Like for example, I felt like everyone around me had it easy but I also noticed that a lot of those people were weak. And I wanted to be just like them because nothing bad ever seemed to happen to them whether it be people calling me the ever classic 'four eyes' well thank you very much. Or having my mother by me a dora the explorer lunch box in the fifth grade. Well, as painful as that was, I learned a little more about myself each time.

        With the name calling, I had thought it would be like the bullying I had seen in movies, and that it would follow with harassment and stalking and me being scared to come to school. Thing is, when he did call me 'four eyes' I expected more like a dramatic life changing moment where I would forever be a target to this young man, only instead as he looked me straight in eyes as he name called me he felt just as awkward as I did like neither of us were supposed to be doing this right now as if he knew he wasn't meant to pick on me and I just wasn't going to be the kind of girl to be bullied in my entire life~ I was Marcia and that made me immune to bullying from him or anybody else. 

       And the dora explorer lunchbox? Now, that was torture. Everyday I wished something tragic happened to that brightly colored thing that caught the attention of many with its orangy flare. Everyone wanted to know what I hid behind my sweater promising it wasn't as bad as I thought hoping to catch a glimpse of the thing. Oh, but I knew better. Kids that age were down right cruel and I would never be so stupid as to participate in their stupidity simply by believing such lies that 'they wouldn't laugh'. I wanted so badly for people not to care what I carried my lunch in, but they never stopped poking and prodding. The thing is, I was supposed to be the one the should not have had to care what I carried my lunch in. But I didn't know any better at that age. I also began to understand the significance of standing up for who you were, and that any tweak of who you truly were was going to hurt significantly until you stood up for yourself. And so I did. I told my mother I needed a new lunch box and not to question why I did and I started off the sixth grade with a plain purple lunch bag and wondering why boys smelled so horribly in the morning.

       Now, after doing my time with the 'suffering', I understand why those people weren't made to go through life's trials. They had their own suffering going on. Maybe at home, maybe in a different part of life. Or maybe the universe was to busy building warriors of life's struggles, those who would succeed and need all the training they could get before stepping off into real life battles. Not wasting their life on people who were too weak to find their own sunshine and decided to rain and thunder on the ones that tried.

       I don't exactly know where this came from, maybe it came that past tuesday when I began to doubt my goals to work for a big animation company or maybe it was the day I questioned why I didn't just pick to be a neurosurgeon when I was in kindergarden and graduated the top of my class just like the characters in Grey's Anatomy. I just wasn't built for that kind of life I was sculpted to succeed as the head of an animated movie working for a company that would fuel my creative and imaginative urges adequately. I understand now why things happen for a reason and although this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of my life's struggles I'm starting somewhere and not lost wondering what I did to deserve being the target of the universe.

Sincerely, The Resilience of  a Teenager

       Oh, and about the big bones and the stubborn- my mother told me I had 'bad knuckles' meaning I should be careful with my anger. One time when my sister was poking fun at me (no surprise there), I let the anger get the best of me and left and black and purplish looking bruise on her left arm. And when my brother messes with me he runs away after he's poked at me too because his popsicle stick arms can do about as much damage as petals against the wind. And being stubborn? I gave up almost a full scholarship to UC Santa Cruz because I chose to suffer two years at community college to save up for the dream school I could not afford to go this fall (Columbia College Chicago). That's stubborn. But I will make it big because I'm headstrong and theres' nothing wrong with headstrong.