January 1992

Another day, another run. I’ve always known I was much more of a winter runner than a summer runner–why’d it take me so long to get my rear in gear?

Anyway, while running today, I passed the driveway of a high school classmate. I’m sure she’s had better luck than I, and has managed to get out of the hellhole that is my neighborhood and this state, but running by the place made me think of when I first arrived here. We’re coming up on our 14-year anniversary in this house. We returned to the Saline area after moving to Mexico for a couple of years. As I said before, I have no idea why my parents moved us to Mexico, but after a while, I got used to living there. The distance became too much for my parents (my father was working in Michigan, my mother was minding us in Mexico), and they decided to reunite the family in 1992. My father initially searched for a house, but ended up building one; that’s another story, though.

When we returned to Saline, I was pleasantly surprised to see that people remembered me (well, most people: half of my grade I didn’t know because they came from the rival elementary school). However, that’s not to say that I was welcome. As I’ve pointed out before, Saline was and remains a very homogenous city, that doesn’t hesitate to express its fear of the uknown (read: people who ain’t white!). I had a hard time readjusting to my role in Saline. In Mexico, I was pretty, popular, and happy. In Saline, I was not considered pretty (fuck that shit, I’m beautiful and I know it), I was definitely not popular, and I was certainly not happy. My first week in middle school helped cement that thinks to the people I ended up hanging out with when I returned.

My middle school had a program that assigned new kids to kids who have been in the system for quite a while. I wasn’t unfamiliar with Saline as a whole, but I was not middle school savvy. My counselor prompted me to mention names of people I’d known in elementary: I mentioned my best friend from second through fifth grades, a few other people who I was friends with throughout the years (you know how friendships fail for no good reason once in a while in elementary), and a few people who I decidedly did not like but remembered. Guess who I got assigned? Yep, one of the people I had not liked only because she had recently volunteered to be a guide. Carter, I’ll call her, since that was her last name. Anyhow, Carter was to be my guide during my first week, walking me from class to class and re-introducing me to people. I was not happy with this, but did not protest–as I’d found to be true in elementary school and in Mexican middle school, teachers do not listen to kids. I awaited my guide on the first day of school with dread.

Carter and I met up that day, and she seemed less than enthusiastic about being my guide. But she did help me out initially, I have to give her credit for that. She helped me with my difficult locker (which, as it turns out, was already shared by two people, but my counselor was and probably still is a dimwit), showed me where all the classes are, and brought me to her lunch table. What I didn’t know (and probably why Carter wasn’t happy to be around me) was that I was sitting at the slut table and did not fit in. A glance could tell–I was dressed in an outfit that was demure, even if the early 1990s didn’t really acquiesce to the idea of demure, while they were dressed in all kinds of tight, revealing and, well, slutty clothes. I ended up talking to two other girls at the table–both lived on my road, and that’s how we bonded a bit. They were both named Heather–one I knew from elementary, one I didn’t know at all. The unknown Heather became much more of a friend than the known Heather. But, even as I point out that I was sitting at the “slut” table, I didn’t know it. I know, it sounds crazy, but it’s true. I was completely oblivious, and I think it’s because I just wanted friends, any friends. My former best friend didn’t seem too interested in reconnecting with me, and everyone else I had gotten along with in elementary were now part of the popular group and didn’t really want much to do with me. I had yet to find that comfortable middle between the losers and the winners where I could fade into obscurity.

Carter ended up dumping me on the very first day–at the end of one class, she never arrived, so I made my way to my locker and to the rest of my classes with very little trouble, but I did call her on it when I later saw her. She claimed to have forgotten, then never spoke to me again. Carter should’ve never volunteered to be a guide to new (or, in my case, semi-new) kids. But the two Heathers took me in, even if it was obvious that I wasn’t really meant to be a part of their group. Unknown Heather was much nicer than known Heather (whose house I ran by today, by the way), and we got along famously for a bit because we were both plump. However, she came to realize that I was just not cool or slutty, so I spent the rest of the school year sitting at the end of the lunch table, writing crappy poetry about how much I wished I were in Mexico and about how much I hated the school. The poetry, crappy as it was, impressed a Michigan student-teacher, so I spent the rest of the year also trying to get him to stop trying to get me to come out of my shell. Other than that, it was an uneventful, if lonely, year.

So, running by known Heather’s house today, I wondered: Will I ever get out of this hellhole, ever? I certainly hope so. Like that half-year in middle school, I just don’t belong to any group here anymore. My high school friends are all married and forming families, so we don’t have much in common anymore. My college friends are also beginning their lives as I struggle find footing in mine, and their successes really pain me (I hate to say that, because that’s not being a good friend, but at least I’m honest). My work friends, fun as they can be, are wearing thin because I’m just sick of complaining about work. As for this house and my family, much as I love it and them, I need to find a space of my own before I resent all of this even more than I do at the moment. Back then, I eventually found my place (the happy middle in the social hierarchy), and I know I’ll do that now, somehow. Finding my place, I mean: When it comes to the social hierarchy, if we’re talking about the professional hierarchy, I want to be the damn best editor around.

Wow, looking over this entry, it seems like I’m bitter or depressed. I’m not: Just remembering what I went through and how I did manage to survive that, and I’ll survive the crapfest that was 2005. And that, I suppose, is my way of saying to look out for the year-in-review later this week.