Jr. High Sucks: A Reflection on my adolescent years

Do you remember that one kid in Jr. High that was three years ahead in math and had no social skills?

I was that kid.

In my middle school the halls were segregated by grade. To journey into another grades territory was to invite torment into ones already shaky adolescent existence. This transverse of agony was part of my regular schedule. The long gray trip down a long line of gray lockers bringing me to the 8th grade math room—the place of my affliction. My small sixth grade frame traveled generating the silent reverberation of footsteps in the empty hall muffled by the hectic orange noise of students in the distance; a noise, along with my dread, that increased with each step. Shuffling with my head drooped, I studied the checkered floor hoping to distract myself from the looming crowd and what I knew was about to take place. No one ever noticed me at first and I always hoped that, somehow miraculously, I had become invisible. But, without fail: “Hey guys! Look who decided to show up, Doogie Howser!” a struggling misfit, who spotted me as easy prey, would ecstatically squeak. Then their daily ritual began as they circled me as goliaths around David bouncing me back and forth like a human pinball. The memories still haunt me: girls laughing, the warmth of red on my blushing face, my backpack jarring from side to side as the older boys pushed me with increasing force until I crashed onto the floor.

I hated myself.

Insecurity encompassed me like a fierce, suffocating wave of emotion. Insecurity will do strange things to a boy who is trying to find his place in the mess of this world. It did strange things to me as it manifested its ugly head in different ways as I discovered various false refuges (and religions) of security. More to come on this . . .