Well, I guess that's appropriate - my chapters now line up with my year in school. Fancy that.
Seventh grade was the year that all the girls in my class went fashion crazy. I started reading Teen and Seventeen and Young Miss magazines, started begging my mom to let me wear makeup and get my ears pierced (she said yes to the makeup, no to the ears), and saved my allowance to buy the latest music and hair frou-frou. I had a growth spurt that summer to make up for the 5th grade chubby phase (thank you God!) and I was able to get more involved in school clubs and things.
It was a year of preteen angst and lots of highs and lows. I had 3 or 4 friends that I started spending a lot more time with. And I had a nemesis who drove me crazy. I'm not sure why, but this girl made it her business to find ways to torment me, and get her friends to do the same.
And, oh yeah, seventh grade was also the year that all the girls in my class went boy crazy. Including me. It's hard now, as I watch my 3 busy children tear around the house, to remember just how much teenage angst filled my 7th through 12th grade years. To remember how much I despaired of ever having a date, much less a boyfriend or a husband. And just so we can get this out of the way - I had ONE date, in all of my middle and high school years. And I was the one who did the asking. And it wasn't the prom. Ok, I said it. This is unfortunately not going to be the story of how Shy Wallflower Ugly Duckling becomes Beautiful Swan and Prom Queen. (It was many years later that I finally got around to feeling like Beautiful Swan.)
Anyway, this is where the spiritual battle and the layers of the mask began in earnest. I learned to be a very good little chameleon, adjusting my personality to suit the occasion and the people I was with. In some ways, it's a shame we had no real drama department - I was becoming a natural actress. By turns I was Smart Girl, Goofy Girl, Busy Girl, Sympathetic Friend Girl, Church Girl, Creative Girl, and Sarcastic Girl. And if I couldn't manage to fake it in any given situation, I defaulted to Loner Girl, in which I tried to pretend I could care less. This is not to say I was always a fake. My few close friends understood me about as well as anyone could have given all I was hiding behind my chameleon mask. My parents loved me and listened, but their advice was usually to just ignore the teasing (unfortunately I could pretend to not notice, but my ears still worked).
I'd been given a diary a couple years previous, and this was the year I discovered that if I couldn't find a sympathetic ear, I could always find a sympathetic page. So all the things I couldn't tell even my parents or closest friends went down on those pages. Every once in a while I got brave and tried to do or say something that was from the Real Me, but usually I got strange looks or teasing out of those efforts, so the mask slid firmly back into place.
This was also the year I began learning that keeping really busy was a great way to distract myself from thinking too hard. It also gave me an outlet. I poured myself into my schoolwork, my flute playing, my singing (at school and at church), and my after school clubs. Once I got home, music, writing, and reading as many books as I could get my hands on became my solace. I would turn the music way up and sing my heart out, and dance through my pain.
And the summer after 7th grade, God finally sent a ray of light to brighten the darkness - in the form of a favor to a friend of my mother's. (I didn't know it at the time, however.) One of the ladies at my church, Mrs. M, who lived just up the street, had her young granddaughter visit every Thursday and Friday during the summer. Our street was only a couple blocks from the local pool, and her granddaughter loved to go swimming. Except that Mrs. M didn't really like hanging out at the busy pool, sitting in the hot sun. So she asked my mother if maybe I could take her granddaughter to the pool with me sometimes (since it was The Place To Be I was there most every day). Mom asked me, and I decided hey, why not - do something different for a change. I'd met Mrs. M's granddaughter and she seemed nice - she'd just finished 2nd grade. It was fun, and since I was an only child, it was kind of like getting a chance to be a big sister for a bit.
Little did I know in doing that small favor I would make a friend for life....
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