In the fall of 1981 I started middle school. Even before that first day, I knew it was going to be a hard time. I had been a very unpopular child since the beginning of fourth grade, teased and always chosen last for any kind of team, sports or otherwise.
By sixth grade I had developed a strategy. I just did my best to ignore it all, except for the very worst times, when I would head straight for the bathroom during recess and hide until the next class started. (One time a small group of girls smoking protectively encircled me when one student in particular was harassing me and to this day I still find the smell of cigarettes reassuring.)
My mind, focused on avoidance and studies, did not process more than one or two things at once so it took time before I realized how much I differed from my other classmates. Besides having crazy hair (perfect for boys to throw things in to) and wearing clothes made by my mom I never knew the right thing to say and had been called "ugly" so often I thought it was my middle name.
I couldn't understand why (at all) but one day I started noticing a girl in the eighth grade. "Trixie" had hair the complete opposite of mine and sang and had a welcoming smile for everyone.
We never interacted nor did I ever see her except at school concerts or in the hallways between classes, but I got a tiny but sharp jot of happiness and excitement whenever I saw her: Every. Single. Time. I delighted in seeing her, in ways I couldn't explain, but still knew weren't normal or typical.
Three years later, having survived what I think of as the worst years any child can go through in school, I started high school, where being tormented by peers was traded in for being ignored, something I infinitely preferred.
The fall of 1984 changed things forever for me. One day I saw someone across the cafeteria during lunch and stopped in my tracks. Up until then I either pretended or just didn't know any better, but that September...I might not be able to name my feelings, but I could name what they were not...
That year and sophomore year I discovered that everything society told and taught me I had to feel for a boy was instead what I felt for a girl.
"J" and I never became friends, we didn't even know each other. As with "Trixie," I only ever saw her from a distance.
Two years later, in senior year, though, I would discover what unrequited feelings (for someone I actually knew) truly meant and it would start a lifelong fear of ever expressing any kind of emotion to another human being...
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