So I had the most interesting happen to me when I was talking to my roommate about my time in middle and high school, I broke down and started to cry. Wow, you have to understand, I never broke down before the way I did this night and ever shed tears about my past. It was interesting, yet refreshing and heart breaking all in one.
When I started at my school in the 4th grade and stayed there til I graduated, it was hell on earth for me. It really wasn't the pleasant view we like to think of when we remember school or the pretty pictures and great times we had when looking back in our year books. No, for me my experience was very rough and hard. The sad thing is that it started off hard for me at a young age as well. It started off when I was in 4th grade.
Before this time, I was in a private school in Maryland up until 3rd grade and really I had no problems there. Didn't feel left out. Had my friends, knew I was different but it was all good. It was quite accepting. Then I moved to NJ and that changed. I went to a very prestigious school. One that was named after the state college in Jersey and there is where I started to feel what I like to call the gap or invisible distance. I remember how lavish students were. I remember imparticularly this one girl who reminded me of Cher from Clueless who would coordinate her outfits with her best friend, color code them and make sure that there were no repeats. Then I remembered the opportunities and different clubs that there were in order to foster growth, intellect and education. It was a bit of a mixed place.
Then there was a child celebrity, who if I mentioned, everyone would know I went to school with as well as her younger brother. It was a truly different world for me. It was honestly different. I didn't particularly fit in but I wasn't outright ostracized either. There it was a balancing act if anything but it was when I moved to my new Christian private school that next year that all hell broke loose for me and things would never be the same. Within a few days of me starting there, I was nervous, wanted to just figure out my surroundings and take my time to adapt but unfortunately for me I was thrown into the mix without consent and with no choice.
My teacher decided to be funny and make a slick comment about my name and from there the verbal abuse, teasing and bullying began. Her actions gave permission for all my other class mates to make fun of me. To me, this was a shock and I was totally taken back because up until this time, I never had anyone make fun of my name and I was fine with my name. After this incident and many teasings to come, I hated my name. I began to not like certain things about myself. I didn't like telling people I was from Cameroon. I didn't want to publicly eat my Cameroonian food. I didn't want to be seen as different. I didn't want to talk differently. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to belong. Unfortunately for me still until I graduated, I never quite did fit in. I got along, got by and made it on the edge of just being accepted.
School was very rough. Having people tease me all the time for my name. Having a girl question me because of how proper I spoke and made me feel as though something was wrong with me because I didn't speak slang. I wasn't miss popular, I had to constantly stand up for myself. I had no one to defend me and I had no one to relate to. I was forced to become a part of African American culture though I was Cameroonian. I was forced into living in surburbia. I barely had any black people yet alone Africans who I was able to connect or relate to in my neighborhood. Then I was forced into a church were diversity was one interracial couple and my family. All the diversity I was used to was snatched away from me. I was different and this time, I felt I was different.
School became a place of having to wear a mask. Having to be strong, having to look like I had it all together. It became competition. I had to do well especially as a black girl, better yet an African black girl. I had to prove I wasn't stupid and that I was able to cut it because all the other pretty, popular black girls were. I never until my senior year wore my hair out, I always rocked braids but that wasn't the desirable thing. I didn't have long legs or indian in me to have long flowy hair. I wasn't a girly girl, I didn't care for the color pink or carry a purse with me. I liked to be outside and run around. I liked to keep up with the guys and eat well. I had an appetite. What can I say. I didn't do the prim thing but I could speak well. I didn't care about barbie's but I enjoyed action figures & sports. I was cultured. I knew about America and Africa and Europe. I loved science and gym, yet this was all thrown back in my face many times over.
See I learned quickly, that in order to be accepted you could be smart but you had to be sexy, you could speak well but had to be a class clown as well, you could not like sports but you had to be artistic, you could love sports but you had to be girly. It was a balancing act and if you didn't fit it, then you were out of luck and that's where I found myself even among the blacks. I was different, really different and that didn't work so well. Not in my white Christian school, not in white suburbia, not even in church. Nope, that didn't work.
For all the oxymorons that I seemed to have exhibited, life became hard for me. I began to understand, that I wasn't pretty enough. I had the attributes, I had the body parts but my strong personality and refusal to back down didn't bode to well. I just didn't understand why people kept picking on me. I, for the life of me couldn't understand. I didn't understand why my proper speech was a problem for both blacks and whites as well. I just didn't get it. I couldn't understand why my parents choice of lifestyle didn't farewell with others. We didn't live in some mansion yet it was a problem to know that I had a maid. We didn't drive the fanciest cars but it was an issue that I traveled to Africa every summer. The contradictions made life nearly impossible to live with.
What I remember so clearly was feeling alone. Was feeling like I had no one to talk to. Was feeling like I had no one to relate to. Was feeling like I had no one to defend me. In all my time there at the school, no one did defend. Well at least not a peer. The only person I remember ever standing up for me was my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Episcopo. She was spanish and she was amazing. She saw me for me and helped spur me on. She came to my side when she saw the bullying and teasing I was constantly going through and did something about it. She took me in for myself and never questioned it but gently molded it to see greatness come out. She was Amazing and still to this day it brings me great joy thingking about her. She showed me Jesus. She showed me she cared and for that I am forever grateful.
See when I was recounting this story to my roommate, I started to cry because this is what I remembered. I remembered out of my entire schooling career one teacher who made a difference. It hurt and it still hurts to think that no one had my back or stood up for me. It hurt to know how alone I was. It still does, I'm not going to lie. It hurts to see a little girl not understand why her being different was such a problem and to see her have to constantly defend herself. Why wasn't anyone there for her? I honestly don't know. But it did help her seek Jesus. It helped her really foster a relationship with Jesus. Maybe that's why no one was there.
I still don't have answers. High school was not the glory days that people make it out to be. It really wasn't for me. If anything those 'friends' I had in high school I don't even talk to. Once graduation came, institutional ties were broken and severed and life moved on. Middle and high school to me where a facade, an empty shell of broken experiences. They did nothing but perpetuate the ignorance and hurt that being different seems to attach itself to in this country. And worst of all being in a Christian school, as great as the education was the real learning experience was heart breaking. I can't say that I met people whom I have such a deep connection with. Nope. I would be lying. I can't say that there are life time friendships that were fostered. Nope, I'd be lying again. What I can say is that I learned. I learned to let go and trust in God. I learned that truly God wasn't joking when He said that 'my people perish for lack of knowledge.' The very place that was supposed to foster hope, bring unity and acceptance did just the opposite.
I've never been the person when looking back wished I was back in middle school or high school. I look back at my life and thank God that I made it through such a rough time in my life. A time that literally almost took my life. I look back at the experiences and say 'Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever." Ps. 118:1
There is healing that needs to take place and I know that but at least for the first time in my life I can be quite honest about this point in time in my life. It definitely wasn't fun. It wasn't pleasant. I don't have to greatest memories of school but in it all God is good because I made it through and I have a relationship with Jesus that I wouldn't trade for the world.
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