Tiffany

Today I was tapping about seventh grade. Ugh. It’s embarrassing. It was embarrassing when it happened, seventh grade was in general. And this specific scene. And it’s even more embarrassing that it could still make me cry forty years later. Pathetic.

I told my therapist this isn’t really trauma, it’s just super embarrassing and he said being super embarrassing is a kind of trauma.

In seventh grade, in choir class, I was standing behind the new girl, Tiffany, who had just moved to Alliance from Oklahoma. She was tall with beautiful thick curly hair, zero percent body fat, and a brashness that I both envied and admired and was slightly repulsed by.

She was a dancer, not ballet. Modern or Jazz. I’m sure she had a six pack although I thankfully didn’t have to ever see it. She wore a diamond and onyx ring that her father had given her. My seventh grade self didn’t question the creepiness of that. I wanted a ring, just like hers with a dad like hers (no offense, dad). Beautiful ringlets like hers or even better.

I wanted Tiffany to adopt me. Or better, take me under her wing, ABC Afterschool Special Style, give me a makeover, and make me cool like her.

So when one day, unexpectedly, she turned around in choir and looked at me and asked, “You know what?”

I was like, “What? Me? What? No! I don’t know. What? Tell me, Tiffany. What, What?”

“You are really ugly.”

You know when you get a big shock? When you get hit unexpectedly, when you get the wind knocked out of you? I’m sure she saw it on my face because, even though miraculously , I didn’t cry until after the bell rang. My face must have crumpled. She felt bad because she quickly said, “Just kidding.”

Even though we both knew she wasn’t. And I was.

Even though Tiffany was a total bi-atch, even though she was a mean girl before mean girls had the official title, I choose to love and accept myself anyway. (That’s what you say while you’re tapping.)

“You know what? You are really ugly.” (Karate-chop point)

“You know what? You know, you know you know. Even though you do know, you know it, you choose to love and accept yourself anyway.” (Top of the head, etc.)

I do have to give it to her because I can’t say she was inaccurate in her assessment. Mean? Yes. Cruel? You got it. But I went through my photos last week looking for evidence of the Original Hamburger Stand in Colorado Springs for an essay I’m working on and found a handful of school pictures.

By third grade, I photographed like a middle aged lesbian who works on lawnmowers in her spare time. And by the seventh, I was a seventy-year old lady. My old me could be a meme. Then we tapped on that.

“Even though I looked like a seventy-year old lady when I was only twelve. (Chin)

A 70 year old lady. I looked 70 but I was only a seventh grader. (Side of the eye)

I choose to love and accept myself anyway. (Top of the head.)