Silly Girl

I’ve done a lot of growing up since kindergarten. I believe I have grown about 2 feet! And my hair has changed, and, ooh, I got braces to straighten up my teeth. I even had to wear headgear for a year. But physical stuff aside I’ve changed a lot on the inside too. Let’s ponder back through the years and see what I have learned.

Kindergarten- When you are playing power puff girls and you say you want to be Blossom and the girl you thought was your best friend says SHE wants to be Blossom, let there be two Blossoms instead of biting her finger. It turns out if you bite hard enough, you can leave a scar on her finger. And no matter how much you want to hang out with the group of cool boys where your little crush is, never, I repeat NEVER, push the new girl down, drag her by her arm across the woodchips and spit on her. It never really ends too well.

First Grade- Hey, love can happen at anytime. Sometimes you could be jumping on your best guy friends trampoline with his three brothers and you fall off and start crying, your friend COULD just purpose to you with a honeysuckle and right then and there you go behind his dads work shed with his brother as the minister, and you get married. Of course the next day you see him holding hands with that girl from across the street and what do you do? Oh yeah throw the honeysuckle at him and run home crying and tape signs all over the door saying “I hate you” “Go away” “I never loved you!” “Come in dad” and that’s when your mom tells you, not all relationships work out.

Second Grade- So you’re just an innocent second grader who just moved to North Dakota feeling hopeless. But then your friend goes around the classroom during indoor recess asking all the guys out for you. After about 13 “no’s” we had a yes. Well now you felt mature. You had a boyfriend! Too bad you guys never talked. And about three months after he said yes, and you still haven’t talked, you figured it was time to take a break and you broke up with him. He started crying. Then as you are healing from the harsh break up you run and slide across the ice, flipping over and busting your head. Karma?

Third Grade- Now this is the year you meet a new best friend. You guys are like sister, you go to the store and buy matching pastel blue wind pants and wear them on the same day with a white turtleneck and you feel like the coolest girl ever. Until of course you somehow manage to miss the toilet and fall in. Your pants aren’t cool anymore and from then on out your known as “Pants wetter girl” Then you create a talent show during recess. It’s actually pretty successful until the weird girl who talks to herself tries out. The entire judges group (You and your two best friends) Say she didn’t make it and back in class you have an hour long speech from you furious teacher about being nice and respectful to everyone waiting for you.

Fourth Grade- Let me just start off by saying because is spelt b-e-c-a-u-s-e. You’re just sitting there in recess because you did something wrong on your worksheet. You erase and re-draw periods all over the page. The teacher keeps saying you’re wrong! You have a reputation and you cant soil it by spending your entire recess indoors! So what do you do? Bust out into tears and say “Fine! Hold me back next year! I’m stupid so just hold me back! I don’t care!” Your teacher sighs and circles the word “becus”. Now you feel stupid and embarrassed. Hey, at least you know now. And to this day I never spell “because” wrong.

Fifth Grade: Sweet business! You’re the highest grade at your school and little kids look up to you. You feel so much more mature. Yeah you got heelys the shoes with the wheels you can pop into the heels and wheel around. You play intramural basketball AND you’re on the safety squad, the group who wears bright orange vests and pick up trash after school and afterwards all jump together in a circle kicking your heels up saying “Safety first!” Now for some reason the evil vice principal tells you, you cant wear heelys to school. So what do you do? Not listen. But then the tattle tail in your class tells the art teacher who tells the vice principal who calls your parents to come pick you up. But then you make a petition. A bunch of people signed it and it passes for your school. Then it gets taken to the district. And it passes. You have never felt so accomplished in your life.

Sixth Grade- Now’s the year you finally start having different teachers for every subject. You also get your very first cell phone and meet a friend who remains your best friend forever, or at least for now. So with your new pink razor cell phone you want to seem all cool in math and you start texting in class. Its great, you don’t get caught at all. You do this again the next day. You are just sending a text when you hear “Madison, would you like to show the class what you are so interested in?” Well, you raise your hand and say “My nail polish?” Yeah SMART MOVE! Too bad you don’t have any nail polish on. He discovers your phone and takes it away. The entire class goes “Oooohhhh!!” Now you are embarrassed. So you start crying. Sobbing really. You rip up paper and throw it in the trash and continue crying. After about 20 minutes of that, the math teacher pulls you aside and asks you what on earth is wrong. You cant say “you took my phone” so what do you say? “My grandpa is in the hospital DYING and my mom was texting me to tell me how he is doing. I love him I don’t want him to die and I couldn’t wait 30 more minutes to see if my grandpa was still alive” Ha. You get your phone back along with a lollipop.

Seventh Grade- Oh dear, this is the year you actually start paying attention to that really funny cute guy, all you want is his attention weather its bad or not. So you start acting really…well creepy towards him hoping he will notice you. He does. Now you are known as “Stalker chick”. Great. Then of course you and your friends spend the entire gym hour standing with your hands on your hips gossiping and gawking over the gorgeous boys’ gym teacher. You also become best friends with the nurse. You call her Nancy, her name, because you see her that often. And lets not forget your science teacher who totally didn’t let you get a drink of water. So lets write “I hate Mrs. Parker!” on the back of your notebook in huge letters. Then leave the book in the classroom. The next day you get in trouble and you have to write a three paragraphed apology letter to her. Christmas break comes and you are just thankful to have a break. When you return, Mrs. Parker no longer works at that school. Mrs. D is your new teacher.

Eight grade- Oh yeah you’re way cool eating lunch with the librarians calling them by their first name, getting all your teachers presents for every holiday being in advanced language arts. Yeah you feel smart. Then the end of the year is coming. Three weeks to go and on a Friday you and your friend in that class decide to write a note about how horrible the teacher is and how stupid she is and write “Sign if you agree”. You sign with fake names, the next day eight people have signed with their real names so you figure “Why not” and sign it. Well the teacher finds it and sticks it on the front board. You and that friend are now sent to the library everyday for the rest of the year to do 30 point worksheets. The librarians don’t like you anymore.


9th grade- In the beginning of the year you start dating a guy. He’s cool…but you don’t like him. So you break up with him only to start dating a different guy two minutes after breaking up with the other guy. You guys date for about four months on and off. Finally its over and you are heart broken. You are miserable and cant sleep and its sad really. Then your English teacher has a new seating arrangement sitting you behind that one guy who seems to know everything but isn’t crazy popular. He actually is kind of weird. But then days go by and you get to know him. He is actually really funny. You start liking him and of course the entire school somehow finds out. You find out he doesn’t like you. So what do you do? Do what you do best and act creepy. I mean if he doesn’t like you what have you got to lose? Oh yeah, a semi normal reputation with him and his friends. Oops, that’s gone.

10th Grade- This year the one thing you convinced yourself would never happen, happened. You fell in love. Head over heels, in love. It probably sounds a little ridiculous to those who don't know me personally, "Ha, a high schooler claiming to be in love, humorous!" But my great grandparents got married at 14 because they were so sure they would never love anyone else, 78 years later they aren't looking back and they have never been happier with each other, my grandparents waited a little longer and got married at 20. Let's just say love has no age limit in my family. I know what it's like to look at real love, I see it every time I visit my great grandparents, and there is not a single bone in my body that does not love this boy with all it has. Last year, I was thinking "Oh, ho ho, next year can NEVER be worse than this year was!" Oh boy was I wrong. It wasn't a normal month for me if I didn't spend at least one week on top of the world and another week completely depressed. I started therapy, which was great. I stopped cutting! I have never been so proud of myself. Looking back on my scars all over my leg, arm and tummy, I have no regrets though. Sure it was wrong of me to do that, but I know why I did it and even though no one understands me it makes sense. It also just goes to show, tell me I can't stop something I'll prove you wrong, I'm strong and I will never go back to doing that.

I’m just at the beginning of high school, the beginning of the rest of my life. I have so much more to learn. But I am going to enjoy high school while I can and just remember all the important things you learn and you are going to take with you forever. So when I am 40 years old with 18 cats and a poncho, I can look back in the yearbook and go “Oh, Mr. Whiskers, in high school…” and tell all my cats my life story.